An Account of the Bell Rock Light-House: Including the Details of the Erection and Peculiar Structure of That Edifice; to Which Is Prefixed a Historical View of the Institution and Progress of the Northern Light-HousesStevenson, Robert
History
An Account of the Bell Rock Light-House: Including the Details of the Erection and Peculiar Structure of That Edifice; to Which Is Prefixed a Historical View of the Institution and Progress of the Northern Light-Houses
Stevenson, Robert
Bell Rock Lighthouse (Scotland); Lighthouses -- Scotland
[Sidenote: Difficulties of this work compared with those of the Bell
Rock.]
But, to enable the reader to form a comparative estimate of the
difficulties attending the early stages of the Carr Rock Beacon,
with those of the Bell Rock Light-house, it may be noticed, that
the period which the artificers were actually at work upon the Carr
Rock, as ascertained by the foreman during the first season, or the
summer of 1813, was 41 hours; and in 1814, after the experience of one
year’s work, these were only extended to 53 hours. Now, if we compare
1807 and 1808, the two first years’ work at the Bell Rock, we find
the artificers were respectively about 180 and 265 hours upon that
rock. The first two years at the Carr Rock were entirely occupied in
excavating and preparing the foundation, and in laying 10 stones, or
the half-course of masonry, which brings the foundation to a uniform
level, for the first entire course of the building, as shewn in Plate
II.; while, at the Bell Rock, in the two first seasons three courses
were erected, as represented in Plate IX., of a building situate 12
miles from the shore, and measuring 42 feet in diameter at the base,
besides the erection of a Beacon-house or Barrack for the workmen.
The establishment for the works at the Bell Rock was of course on a
much larger scale than that of the Carr Rock; but still the latter was
equally effective, and the same apparatus, artificers and seamen, were
employed at both.
[Sidenote: Third year’s work at the Carr Rock.]
During the third year’s work, or 1815, the second course of the masonry
was completed upon the Carr, and nine stones of the third course had
been got laid by the 3d of October, when a heavy ground-swell obliged
the artificers precipitately to leave the rock and take to their
boats. This swell was immediately accompanied by a gale of easterly
wind, and before the cement had taken bond or firmness, the surge of
the sea washed it out; when the oaken trenails, used as a temporary
fixture during the progress of the work, were wrenched off, and the
stone-joggles broken asunder. The whole of the nine blocks of stone
were thus swept off the rock and lost in deep water, though they had
been completely dove-tailed, and fitted on the same principles as the
masonry of the Bell Rock Light-house, where not a single stone was lost
during the whole progress of the work.
[Sidenote: Fourth year’s work.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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