Smeaton and Lighthouses: A Popular Biography, with an Historical Introduction and SequelAnonymous
History
Smeaton and Lighthouses: A Popular Biography, with an Historical Introduction and Sequel
Anonymous
Lighthouses; Smeaton, John, 1724-1792
At Arbroath suitable buildings are erected for the light-keepers’
families, with each a piece of enclosed ground, and a seat in the
parish-church. Connected with these buildings are store-houses, a room
for the master and crew of the attending vessels, and a signal-tower
fifty feet high, at the top of which is a small observatory furnished
with an excellent achromatic telescope, a flag-staff, and a copper
signal-ball measuring eighteen feet in diameter. By means of this and
a corresponding ball at the lighthouse, daily signals are kept up to
signify when _all is well_. Should the ball at the rock be allowed to
remain down, as is the case when anything is particularly wanted, or
in the event of sickness, the tender immediately puts out to sea.
The expense of this great national undertaking, together with the
buildings at Arbroath, the attending vessel, and the first year’s
stores, amounted to about sixty-one thousand three hundred and fifty
pounds.
We cannot close this notice of the Bell Rock lighthouse without
recording a curious accident which occurred on the night of the 9th
February, 1832, about 10 o’clock. A large-herring gull struck one of
the south-eastern mullions of the light-room with such force, that two
of the polished plates of glass measuring about two feet square and a
quarter of an inch thick, were shivered to pieces, and scattered over
the floor, to the great alarm of the keeper on watch, and the other
two inmates, who rushed instantly into the light-room. It happened
fortunately, that although one of the red shaded sides of the
reflector-frame was passing in its revolution at the moment, the
pieces of broken glass were so minute, that no injury was done to the
valuable red glass. The gull was found to measure five feet between
the tips of the wings. In its gullet was found a large herring, and in
its throat a piece of plate-glass about an inch in length.
* * * * *
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