e anvil, had to be taken down, and carried away every tide!
Frequently, in fine weather, this enterprising son of Vulcan might have
been seen toiling with his head enveloped in volumes of smoke and
sparks, and his feet in the water, which gradually rose to his ankles
and knees until, with a sudden "hiss," it extinguished his fire and
ended his labours for the day. Then he was forced to pack up his
bellows and tools, and decamp with the rest of the men.

Sometimes they wrought in calm, sometimes in storm; always, more or
less, in water. Three hours was considered a fair day's work. When
they had the good fortune to work "double tides" in a day, they made
five, or five-and-a-half, hours; but this was of rare occurrence.

"You see that mark there, sir, on Smith's Ledge?" said Mr Long to me
one day, "that was the place where the forge stood; and the ledge
beyond, with the old bit of iron on it, is the `_Last Hope_,' where Mr
Stevenson and his men were so nearly lost." Then he went on to tell me
the following incident, as illustrating one of the many narrow escapes
made by the builders.

One day, soon after the men had commenced work, it began to blow hard,
and the crew of the boat belonging to the attending vessel, named the
"Smeaton," fearing that her moorings might be insufficient, went off to
examine them. This was wrong. The workmen on the rock were
sufficiently numerous to completely fill three boats. For one of these
to leave the rock was to run a great risk, as the event proved. Almost
as soon as they reached the "Smeaton," her cables parted and she went
adrift, carrying the boat with her away to leeward, and although sail
was instantly made, they found it impossible to regain the rock against
wind and tide. Mr Stevenson observed this with the deepest anxiety,
but the men, (busy as bees about the rock), were not aware of it at
first.

The situation was terrible. There were thirty-two men left on a rock
which would in a short time be overflowed to a depth of twelve or
fifteen feet by a stormy sea, and only two boats in which to remove
them. These two boats, if loaded to the gunwales, could have held only
a few more than the half of them.

While the sound of the numerous hammers and the ring of the anvil were
heard, the situation did not appear so hopeless; but soon the men at the
lowest part of the foundation were driven from work by the rising tide;
then the forge-fire was extinguished, and the men ge