One of the great difficulties experienced was landing the stones on the rock from the lighters, which, towed out by a steamer, were cast off as near the landing-place as possible and then towed in by boats. The landing service throughout the whole progress of the works was one of danger and anxiety, and many narrow escapes were made. On many occasions the men who steered the lighters ran great risks, and it was often found necessary to lash them to the rails, to prevent them being thrown overboard by the sudden bounds of the vessels, or being carried away by the weight of water which swept their decks as they were towed through a heavy sea. Sometimes they were forced, owing to the heavy seas which threatened to throw the vessels on the top of the rock, to draw out the lighters from the wharf without landing a single stone, after they had been towed through a stormy passage of thirteen miles. One day, during the very best part of the season, so sudden were the jerks of the vessel before the sea, that eight large warps, or cables, were snapped like threads, and the lighter was carried violently before a crested wave which rolled unexpectedly upon her. Those who stood on deck were thrown flat on their faces, and imagined that the vessel had been laid high and dry on the top of the rock. Yet, in spite of the short season and great difficulties of the work, no less than 120 lighters were towed out and discharged in the summer and autumn of 1841. During the progress of building the lighthouse, cranes and other materials were swept away by the waves, and daily risks were run in blasting the splintery gneiss, or by the falling of heavy bodies from the tower on the narrow space below, to which so many persons were necessarily confined. Yet no loss of life or limb occurred; and “our remarkable preservation was viewed,” says Stevenson, “as in a peculiar manner the gracious work of Him by whom ‘the very hairs of our head are all numbered.’” The light was first exhibited on the 1st of February, 1844. It is a revolving apparatus, and the light appears at its brightest state once in every minute. The lantern is no less than 150 feet above the sea, and its flashes may be seen from the deck of a vessel eighteen miles off. It is frequently seen from the high land of Barra, distant thirty-eight miles. The mass of stonework is double that of the Bell Rock Lighthouse, and five times that of the Eddystone; it measures 58,580 cubic feet. The Skerryvore Light-tower was erected at a cost of £86,977 17s. 7d. [Illustration: THE SKERRYVORE LIGHTHOUSE.]