the requirements of good architecture quite as much as a column of the Parthenon." [Footnote I: No. 228.] Covered to the height of fifteen feet at spring tide, and little more than a hundred yards in its extent, the famous Bell Rock, or Inchcape, facing the Frith of Tay at a distance of twelve miles at sea, was as dangerous to the navigation of the eastern coast of Scotland as the Eddystone had been to the entrance of the Channel. To erect a tower on a spot like this was an undertaking of no common boldness, but, fired by Smeaton's example, Mr. Robert Stevenson no less gloriously succeeded in converting what for ages had been a source of danger into a beacon of safety. [Illustration: Bell Rock Lighthouse.] On the opposite coast of Scotland, and placed in the same parallel of latitude as Bell Rock, the Skerryvore Reef had a name equally dreaded by the mariner. Situated considerably farther from the mainland than the Bell Rock, it is less entirely submerged, some of its summits rising above the level of high water, though the surf dashes over them; but the extent of foul ground is much greater, and hidden dangers, even in fine weather, beset the intervening passage between its eastern extremity and Tyree, from which island it is distant some eleven miles. In rough weather the sea which rises there is described as one in which no ship could live. This terrible reef, so fatal to many a gallant bark, rendered the erection of a lighthouse most desirable, yet such was the difficulty of the case that although so long ago as 1814 an Act was obtained for a light on Skerryvore, it was not before 1837 that Mr. Alan Stevenson, son of the famous architect of the Bell Rock sea-tower, was authorised to commence the work. That difficulty was not confined to the position and character of the reef itself, as the neighbouring island of Tyree afforded no resource, and all the materials for the building, even the stone itself, had to be transported from distant quarters. At length, all preliminary arrangements being settled, the engineer reached the rock and commenced his work, in June 1838, by erecting a barrack-house upon stilts--a sort of dovecot perched on poles--high out of the water on the reef, close to the proposed site of the lighthouse. The erection of this barrack fully occupied the first summer; and, lest it might be supposed that this was but little work for so long a time, it may be as well to remark that, such was the turbulence of the sea that between August 7 and September 11, it had only been possible to be 165 hours on the rock. Much inconvenience was occasioned by the hard and slippery nature of the volcanic formation of the Skerryvore, to which the action of the sea had given the appearance and the smoothness of a mass of dark-coloured glass, so that the foreman of the masons compared the operation of landing on it to that of climbing up the neck of a bottle. When we consider how often,