The stones and machinery were prepared in a work-yard provided for the purpose at Arbroath, the nearest harbour on the adjacent coast. In this place barracks were erected for the workmen, that they might at all times be ready night or day to go off to the Bell Rock. A sloop, named the ‘Smeaton,’ (in honour of the great engineer who had left so splendid a pattern for the present structure,) had been built expressly for the Bell-Rock service, to be employed as a tender for the floating light, and as a stone-lighter for the use of the work: it served also to convey the workmen to and from the rock. On the 17th August 1807 the work on the rock was begun. The first employment was to bore a sufficient number of holes for receiving the ends of beams, for the support of a wooden beacon or workshop and temporary residence for the workmen. But this was no easy task. The hard compact nature of the sand-stone of which the rock is composed soon blunted the tools, and rendered necessary the constant employment of a smith with his forge. But the operations of this useful artificer were even more difficult than those of the stone-cutters. It often happened that after the flood-tide had obliged the pickmen to strike work, a sea would come rolling over the rocks, while the smith was in the middle of a ‘favourite heat,’ dashing out the fire, and endangering his indispensable instrument, the bellows; or if the sea was smooth, the smith had often to stand at work knee deep in water, and the tide would rise imperceptibly, first cooling the exterior of the fire-place or hearth, and then quickly blackening and extinguishing the fire from below. Mr. Stevenson describes it as amusing to witness the perplexing anxiety of the smith when coaxing his fire, and endeavouring to avert the effects of the rising tide. Sometimes, while his feet were immersed in water, his face was not only scorched but continually exposed to volumes of smoke and sparks of fire. A great object therefore, of the beacon was to remove the smith above the reach of the highest tide. One effect of visiting the rock at every tide, and carrying on this noise and traffic, was to banish the herd of seals which had hitherto frequented it as a resting-place during low water. As many as fifty or sixty of these animals had been seen at one time on the rock, but now not more than one or two occasionally appeared, and these confined their visits to the detached outlayers of the rock, from whence they would gaze on the workmen with that look of curiosity so remarkable in this animal. Mr. Stevenson was desirous of protecting them, in hopes of taming them, so as to gain that facility of studying their habits which was afforded at Small’s Lighthouse, off the coast of Pembrokeshire, a favourite resort of seals, where, by gentle treatment, they had become so tame and familiar as to eat bread out of the hands of the light-keepers.