Up to this point all the courses had been begun by the stones that were securely dove-tailed into the rock, and further made fast by oak-wedges and cement. To receive these wedges, two grooves were cut in the waist of each stone, from the top to the bottom of the course, of an inch in depth and three inches in width. The care with which the foundation-work was carried on may be gathered from Smeaton’s description of the manner of laying each stone. ‘The stone to be set being hung in the tackle, and its bed of mortar spread, was then lowered into its place, and beat with a heavy wooden maul, and levelled with a spirit level; and the stone being accurately brought to its marks, it was then considered as set in its place. The business now was to retain it exactly in that position, notwithstanding the utmost violence of the sea might come upon it, before the mortar was hard enough to resist it. The carpenter now dropped into each groove two of the oaken wedges, one upon its head, the other with its point downwards, so that the two wedges in each groove would lie heads and points. With a bar of iron about two inches and a half broad, a quarter of an inch thick, and two feet and a half long, the ends being square, he could easily (as with a rammer) drive down one wedge upon the other; very gently at first, so that the opposite pairs of wedges being equally tightened, they would equally resist each other, and the stone would therefore keep place. A couple of wedges were also, in like manner, pitched at the top of each groove; the dormant wedge, or that with the point upward, being held in the hand, while the drift-wedge, or that with its point downward, was driven with a hammer. The whole of what remained above the upper surface of the stone was then cut off with a saw or chisel: and generally, a couple of thin wedges were driven very moderately at the butt-end of the stone; whose tendency being to force it out of its dove-tail, they would, by moderate driving, only tend to preserve the whole mass steady together, in opposition to the violent agitation that might arise from the sea.’ In addition to this, a couple of holes having been bored through every piece of stone, one course was bound to another by oak trenails driven stiffly through, and made so fast that they could more easily be torn asunder than pulled out again. ‘No assignable power,’ says Smeaton, ‘less than what would by main stress pull these trenails in two could lift one of these stones from their beds when so fixed, exclusive of their natural weight, as all agitation was prevented by the lateral wedges.’ The stone being thus fixed, a proper quantity of mortar was liquefied; and the joints having been carefully pointed, up to the upper surface, this mortar or cement was poured in with iron ladles so as to occupy every void space. The more consistent parts of this cement naturally settled to the bottom, and the watery parts were absorbed by the stone: the