nd eighty hours, of which one hundred and thirty-three, or about
thirteen and a half days of ten hours each, could be said to have been
actively employed, and yet during this period, besides the erection of
the principal beams of the beacon-house, some considerable progress
had been made in preparing the site of the lighthouse. 'This reason's
work,' says the engineer, 'affords a good example of what may be
executed under similar circumstances, when every heart and hand is
anxiously and zealously engaged, for the artificers wrought at the
erection of the beacon as for life; or somewhat like men stopping a
breach in a wall to keep out an overwhelming flood.'

During winter the men were busy in the work-yard preparing the stones
and laying them course by course upon a stone basement, equal to the
foundation course of the lighthouse. Here the stones were fitted into
their places, and carefully numbered and marked as they were to lie in
the building; a necessary operation, the several courses being
dove-tailed and connected together, so as to form one mass from the
centre to the circumference of the building. The stones were also
bored or fixed with trenails of oak and joggles of stone, after the
manner of the Eddystone lighthouse, and in this state they were laid
aside, and in readiness for being shipped in lighters for the rock.

Considering the importance of a light on the Bell Rock, it was at
first determined that the whole outward casing of the lighthouse
should be of granite, and that sand-stone should be used only for the
interior work; but from the difficulty of procuring a sufficient
supply of granite, it was afterwards found necessary to restrict the
use of it to the lower courses of the building. The granite was from
the Rubislaw quarry, and was so compact, that it contained only about
thirteen and a half cubic feet to the ton. The sand-stone was from the
Mylnefield quarry, and contained fifteen feet to the ton.

As soon as the weather would permit, the operations of the second
season commenced at the rock. The arrangements for carrying on the
works were made on an improved scale. A new vessel (named the Sir
Joseph Banks) was provided as a tender for lodging the workmen off the
rock, instead of the floating-light. The new tender was well supplied
with cooking apparatus, provisions, water, fuel, &c.; the space not
used as birthage, &c. was occupied with casks of lime, cement, and
other articles required for the w