square and a
quarter of an inch thick, were shivered to pieces, and scattered over
the floor, to the great alarm of the keeper on watch, and the other
two inmates, who rushed instantly into the light-room. It happened
fortunately, that although one of the red shaded sides of the
reflector-frame was passing in its revolution at the moment, the
pieces of broken glass were so minute, that no injury was done to the
valuable red glass. The gull was found to measure five feet between
the tips of the wings. In its gullet was found a large herring, and in
its throat a piece of plate-glass about an inch in length.

* * * * *

While the Bell-Rock lighthouse was in progress, Mr. Stevenson was
often struck with the frequent and distressing occurrence of
shipwrecks at the Carr Rock. The Carr forms the seaward termination of
a reef of sunken rocks which appear at low water, extending about a
mile and three quarters from the shore of Fifeness, on the northern
side of the entrance of the Frith of Forth. The very dangerous
position of this rock, as a _turning point_ in the navigation of the
northern-bound shipping of the Frith, required that this rock, in
connection with the several lighthouses of the Bell Rock, Isle of May,
and Inchkeith, should be made as easily distinguishable to the mariner
as possible. In the course of nine years no fewer than sixteen vessels
had been either lost or stranded on the Carr Rocks. Therefore, in
1809, moorings were laid down for a floating buoy, 'but owing to the
heavy swell of sea and the rocky sand-stone bottom on this part of the
coast, it was found hardly possible to prevent the buoy from
occasionally drifting, even although it had been attached to part of
the great chain made from bar-iron an inch and a half square, with
which the Bell-Rock floating-light had been moored for upwards of four
years without injury. The moorings of the Carr Rock buoy, from the
continual rubbing upon the sand-stone bottom, were worn through with
the friction in the course of ten months; and during the four years
which it rode here, though regularly examined and replaced in the
proper season of the year, it was no less than five times adrift, to
the great inconvenience and hazard of shipping.'

Such being the case, it was resolved, however difficult and perilous
the undertaking, to erect a beacon of masonry upon the rock. The
length of the Carr Rock, from north to south, measures seventy