In the year 1802, Mr. Stevenson, the engineer of the Northern Lighthouses, sailed on his annual voyage of inspection, taking with him a foreman and sixteen artificers to commence the works at Start Point. The vessel reached Orkney by the 20th April, and even at this advanced part of the season the islands were covered to the depth of six inches with snow. This, at any time, is rather uncommon in Orkney; but such had been the severity of this season in the northern regions, that a flock of wild swans, which in severe winters visit these islands, were still seen in considerable numbers upon the fresh-water lakes of Sanday. Those large birds are supposed to migrate from Iceland, but are rarely seen in Orkney later than the month of March; so that their appearance in the latter end of April was regarded as a mark of a very severe and long-continued winter in the higher latitudes. There being no workable sand-stone on Sanday island, a quarry was opened on the contiguous island of Eda, where it occurred of a tolerably good quality. In order to render the building substantially water-tight, it had been originally intended to make it wholly of hewn-stone built in regular courses; but the quarry of Eda being about fourteen miles distant from the works, the stones had to be conveyed by sea through rapid tides; and there being but indifferent creeks or havens, both at the quarry and at the Start Point, it was found necessary to make only the principal stones of hewn work, while the body of the work was executed in rubble building, for which excellent materials were at hand, consisting of a sort of sand-stone slate or micaceous schist. The encroachments of the sea had heaped up immense quantities of these stones at high-water mark all round the Start Point, the shores of which appeared like the ruins of the wall of some large city.