Lighthouses and Lightships: A Descriptive and Historical Account of Their Mode of Construction and OrganizationAdams, W. H. Davenport (William Henry Davenport)
History
Lighthouses and Lightships: A Descriptive and Historical Account of Their Mode of Construction and Organization
Adams, W. H. Davenport (William Henry Davenport)
Lighthouses; Lightships
“On deck,” we are told,[37] “there was only one solitary individual
looking out to give the alarm, in the event of the ship breaking from
her moorings. The seamen on watch continued only two hours; he who kept
watch at this time was a tall, slender man of a black complexion; he
had no great-coat nor over-all of any kind, but was simply dressed in
his ordinary jacket and trousers; his hat was tied under his chin with
a napkin, and he stood aft the foremast, to which he had lashed himself
with a gasket, or small rope round his waist, to prevent his falling
upon deck or being washed overboard. When Mr. Stevenson looked up he
appeared to smile, which afforded a further symptom of the confidence
of the crew in their ship.”
[37] Stevenson, “Account of the Bell Rock Lighthouse,” p. 157.
About six o’clock in the evening the gale abated, and the sun rose the
next morning in a comparatively serene sky. The waves still rolled very
heavily, and at the Bell Rock they threw up their spray in columns of
from forty to fifty feet in height. When Mr. Stevenson was able to
visit the rock, he found abundant evidence of their force: six large
blocks of granite had been removed from their places and flung over
a rising ledge into a hole some twelve or fifteen paces distant. The
ash-pan of the smith’s forge, with its weighty cast-iron back, had
also been washed from their places of supposed security; the chain of
attachment had been broken, and these ponderous articles were found on
the very opposite side of the rock.
* * * * *
Such incidents as these stimulated Stevenson’s desire to complete the
erection of the beacon, which would serve as a warning to the mariner,
and as an asylum for the artificers on the rock. By dint of persevering
exertions, it was at length completed; and soon afterwards, on the 6th
of October 1807, the works were relinquished for the season. Though
only about one hundred and thirty-three hours had been actually devoted
to them, enough had been effected to afford an example of what may be
accomplished under similar circumstances, when every heart and hand
labour with conscientious zeal; for the artificers had wrought at the
construction of the beacon as if for life, or like men stopping a
breach in a wall to repress the inroads of a destroying flood.[38]
[38] Stevenson, “Account of the Bell Rock Lighthouse,” p. 180.
* * * * *
During the winter the men were engaged in quarrying and preparing the
stones, and collecting divers materials. The stones were laid down in
courses in the positions they would occupy in the future lighthouse;
they were then carefully numbered and marked, bored or fixed with
oaken trenails and stone joggles, after the plan adopted by Smeaton
in building the Eddystone lighthouse; and in this state laid aside for
trans-shipment to the rock.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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