The operations of the second season (1808) were commenced at as early a date as the weather permitted. A new tender, the _Sir Joseph Banks_, was provided for the reception of the men when not at work, and as it lay alongside the rock, protected from the winds, the process of landing or embarkation was conducted with very great facility. The mode in which the different artificers were employed is thus described by Mr. Stevenson[39]:— “Preparations having been made for a second forge upon the beacon, the smiths commenced their operations both upon the higher and lower platforms, where forges had been erected. They were employed in sharpening the picks and irons for the masons, and in making _bats_, movable cranes, and other apparatus of various descriptions connected with the railways. The landing-master’s crew were occupied in assisting the mill-wrights in laying the railways to land. Sailors, of all descriptions of men, are the most accommodating in the use of their hands. They worked freely with the boring irons, and assisted in all the operations of the railways, acting by turns as boatmen, seamen, and artificers. We had no such character on the Bell Rock as the common labourer. All the operations of this department were cheerfully undertaken by the seamen, who, both on the rock and on shipboard, were the inseparable companions of every work connected with the erection of the Bell Rock Lighthouse. It will naturally be supposed, that about twenty-five masons, occupied with their picks in executing and preparing the foundation of the lighthouse, in the course of a tide of about three hours, would make a considerable impression upon an area even of forty-two feet in diameter. But in proportion as the foundation was deepened, the rock was found to be much more hard and difficult to work, while the baling and pumping of water became much more troublesome. A joiner was kept almost constantly employed in fitting the picks to their handles, which, as well as the points of the irons, were very frequently broken. At eight o’clock the water overflowed the site of the building, and the boats left the rock with all hands for breakfast.” [39] Stevenson, “Account of the Bell Rock Lighthouse,” pp. 222, 223. The appearance of the rock at this time was very curious, and with its effects of light and shade would have pleased the eye of a Rembrandt. Its surface was thronged with men; the two forges flamed, one above the other, like Cyclopean furnaces; while the anvils thundered with the rebounding clash of their wooden supports, in strange contrast with the noisy clamour of the ocean-surge. During the night, if the men were at work, the spectacle presented to a passing vessel was of the most picturesque character. To the artificers themselves, the effect of extinguishing the torches was sometimes startling, and made terrible the darkness of the night; while the sea, lit up with a phosphoric glow, rolled in upon the rock like waves of fire.