for two or three days, he expired. Vacancies, however,
seldom occurred in the lighthouse. Smeaton mentions several men who
had served there to his knowledge ten, fifteen, or twenty years.

Having thus conducted our readers to the close of Smeaton's arduous
undertaking, and noticed its complete success, we may proceed to
describe the more remarkable lighthouses erected in other portions of
the kingdom subsequent to the labours of this celebrated engineer.

CHAPTER VI.

THE NORTHERN LIGHTHOUSES.

Importance of Lighting the Scottish Coast--Formation of
Board of Commissioners of Northern Lighthouses--Early
Proceedings of the Board--Principal Northern
Lighthouses--The Isle of May Lighthouse--Loss of two
Frigates--Application of the Admiralty to the Lighthouse
Board, by whom the Duties and the Island of May are
purchased--Numerous Shipwrecks on the Island of
Sanday--Foundation-stone of Start-Point Lighthouse
laid--Rev. W. Traill's Address upon the occasion--Subsequent
Proceedings on Sanday Island--North Ronaldsay
Lighthouse--Melancholy Accident--Importance of the Northern
Lighthouses.

The coast of Scotland is deservedly celebrated for the skill and
enterprise of its lighthouse system. This coast, extending to about
two thousand miles in circuit, is, perhaps, the most dangerous of any
in Europe. Previous to the erection of efficient lighthouses, it was
frequently strewed with wrecks, and proved how inadequate to the
protection of the mariner were the few feeble lights which were then
under the controul of private or local trusts. Accordingly, in the
year 1786, the Commissioners of Northern Lighthouses were, by Act of
Parliament, erected into a board, consisting of his Majesty's advocate
and solicitor-general, the chief magistrates of the principal burghs
of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Inverness, Campbeltown, and the
sheriffs or judges ordinary of maritime counties. The preamble to the
act states, 'That it would conduce greatly to the security of
Navigation and the Fisheries if _four_ lighthouses were erected in the
northern parts of Great Britain;' namely, one on Kinnaird Head, in
Aberdeenshire, one on the Orkney Islands, one on the Harris Isles, and
one at the Mull of Kintyre, in Argyleshire. Such appears to have been
the state of trade in Scotland about sixty years ago, that the
erection of four lighthouses was all that was contemplated. But no
so