Some idea may be formed of the difficulties attending the early stages of this work, from the fact that during the whole of the first season, or summer of 1813, the workmen could not command more than forty-one hours’ work upon the rock; during the second season the time was only fifty-three hours. These two years were entirely occupied in excavating and preparing the foundation, and in laying ten stones, or the half course of masonry, which brought the foundation to a uniform level for the first entire course of the building. Mr. Stevenson contrasts this slow progress with that made at the Bell Rock during the first two seasons. Although this building was situated twelve miles from the shore, three courses were erected, the diameter of the base being forty-two feet, besides the erection of a beacon-house or barrack for the workmen. ‘The establishment for the works at the Bell Rock was of course on a much larger scale than that of the Carr Rock; but still the latter was equally effective, and the same apparatus, artificers, and seamen, were employed at both.’ During the third year’s work, the second course of the masonry was completed upon the Carr; and nine stones of the third course were laid by the 3rd of October, when a heavy ground-swell obliged the workmen precipitately to leave the rock and take to their boats. Before the cement was fixed, the surge of the sea had washed it out; the oaken trenails were wrenched off, and the whole of the nine blocks of stone swept off the rock and lost in deep water, though they had been completely dove-tailed and fitted on the same principles as the masonry of the Bell-Rock lighthouse, where not a single stone was lost during the whole progress of the work. During the fourth season, the operations were retarded by several untoward accidents. The wind and the waves sometimes destroyed in a moment the labour of weeks; but by dint of skill and untiring patience and industry, they succeeded by the month of November in completing the sixteenth course, which raised the building to the height of about twenty feet. The fifth year was particularly unfortunate. The whole of the masonry having been completed, the coast was visited in November with a gale of wind, accompanied with a heavy swell of sea, which washed down the upper part of the building, and reduced it to the height of the fifth course, which formed part of the fourth year’s work. It was therefore determined to modify the original design of the work. Instead of completing this beacon with masonry, and providing the machine and large bell, which was to have measured five feet across the mouth, to be tolled by the alternate rise and fall of the tide, it was now determined to erect six columns of cast iron upon the remaining courses of masonry, to terminate in a cast iron ball of the diameter of three feet, formed in ribs, elevated about twenty-five feet above the medium level of the sea. This beacon was completed in September 1821. FOOTNOTES: