by how many persons, and under what circumstances of swell and motion, this operation was repeated, we must look upon this feature of the spot as an obstacle of no slight amount. At length, after much danger and difficulty, the barrack was completed, but the first November storm swept it away and utterly annihilated the work of the season. Iron stancheons had been drawn, broken, and twisted like the wires of a champagne bottle; the smith's iron anvil had been transported eight yards from where it was left; and a stone three-fourths of a ton was lifted out from the bottom of a hole and sent towards the top of the rock. Mortified, but nothing daunted by this disaster, which gave him a warning of the tremendous power he had to contend with, Mr. Stevenson prepared during the winter for the labours of 1839, which, besides the re-erection of the barrack on an improved plan, chiefly consisted in the levelling or blasting of a flat surface of forty-two feet diameter on the top of the rock from which the lighthouse was to arise. This foundation pit was in itself a work of no small magnitude, as it required for its excavation the labours of 20 men for 217 days, the firing of 296 shots, and the removal into deep water of 2,000 tons of material. The blasting, from the absence of all cover and the impossibility of retiring to a distance farther in any case than thirty feet, and often reduced to twelve, demanded all possible carefulness. The only precautions available were a skilful appointment of the charge and the covering the mines with mats and coarse netting made of old rope. Every charge was fired by or with the assistance of the architect in person, and no mischief occurred.