The lighthouse, the landing-stage, and other appurtenances, are executed in Cornish granite throughout. The blocks were fashioned from picked stone of fine, close, hard grain, and ranged up to 4 and 5 tons in weight. The method of construction followed the approved lines of to-day, in which each stone is dovetailed into its neighbour, above, below, and on either side. As the stones were cut and fitted in the Cornish quarries, they were set up and fitted course by course. Then, when they had met the approbation of the engineer deputed for this duty, they were numbered and given other identification marks, so that upon reaching the base at Rock Island, upon the Irish mainland, within easy reach of the Fastnet, they could be despatched in rotation to the site, to be set in position. It was in August, 1896, that the first little squad of labourers landed on the Fastnet, under the superintendence of James Kavanagh, a first-class all-round mason--one of those men who occupy a unique position when emergency calls. He was just the type of foreman that the task demanded, careful, daring, a hard worker, zealous, dauntless. Once he had landed on the rock to prepare the foundations, he seldom left it; and, what is more, every stone constituting the tower was well and truly laid by his own hand. It was indeed unfortunate that Kavanagh, after his momentous round of toil was over, should be stricken down with apoplexy, to which he succumbed, after virtually years of imprisonment upon an ill-famed rock, facing discomforts and privations of all descriptions, and seizing every opportunity to drive the task forward. It was as if Nature, baffled in her efforts to circumvent the work of human ingenuity, had taken revenge upon the man who had laboured mightily to complete her subjection. Kavanagh took with him upon the rock a small boiler and steam-winch, which he set up without delay, to land both workmen and necessaries. He lost no time in cutting away at the toe of the cliff, to admit the first partial ring of stones. It was a ding-dong battle between the masons and the sea for the first few rounds. The men toiled heroically with their chisels between the coming of the rollers, with one eye on the water and the other on a handy life-line, which they grabbed when the Atlantic endeavoured to steal a march upon them. On some days splendid progress was made; on others the masons never drove the chisels once into the rock-face.