Mr. Robert Stevenson, to whom the work was intrusted as engineer, had from a very early age been employed in connection with lighthouses. He went almost directly from school to the office of Mr. Thomas Smith of Edinburgh, and when that gentleman was appointed engineer to the Northern Lighthouse Commissioners, became his assistant, and afterwards successor. When only nineteen, Mr. Stevenson superintended the construction of the lighthouse on the island of Little Cumbray; and during the time he was engineer to the Commissioners, which post he held till 1842, he erected no fewer than forty-two lighthouses, and introduced a great many valuable improvements into the system. His reputation, however, will be chiefly perpetuated as the architect of the Bell Rock Lighthouse. On the 17th August 1807, Mr. Stevenson and his men landed on the rock, to the astonishment and discomposure of the seals who had, from time immemorial, been in undisturbed possession of it, and now floundered off into the water on the approach of the usurpers. The workmen at once set about preparing the rock for the erection of a temporary pyramid on which a barrack-house was to be placed for the reception of the workmen. They could only work on the rock for a few hours at spring-tide. As soon as the flood-tide began to rise around them, putting out the fire of the smith's forge, and gradually covering the rock, they had to gather up their tools and retreat to a floating barrack moored at a considerable distance, in order to reach which they had to row in small boats to the tender, by which they were then conveyed to their quarters. The operations of this first season were particularly trying to the men, on account of their having to row backwards and forwards between the rock and the tender at every tide, which in rough weather was a very heavy pull, and having often after that to work on the rock knee deep in water, only quitting it for the boats when absolutely compelled by the swelling waves. Sometimes the sea would be so fierce for days together that no boat could live in it, and the men had, therefore, to remain cooped up wearily on board the floating barrack.