that height.

Sir Walter Scott--dear Sir Walter, whose "Tales of a Grandfather" and
Scottish stories and poems were so delightfully familiar to the boys and
girls of the last generation, left a charming little diary of a voyage he
made in the summer of 1814, on board a Light-house yacht, in company with
the Commissioners of Northern Lights,--who have charge of the
Light-houses in Scotland, as the Elder Brethren of Trinity House have of
those in England,--their Surveyor-Viceroy, the engineer Stevenson, and a
few other gentlemen.

The first Light-house they visited was an old tower, like a "border
keep," still illuminated by a grate fire on top. The commissioners think
of substituting an oil revolving-light; but Sir Walter wonders if the
_grate_ couldn't be made to revolve!

Next they came to Bell Rock, which, in olden times, was the terror of
sailors feeling their way in and out of the islands and rocks and shoals
of the beautiful, perilous coast of Scotland. Inch-cape Rock, as it was
then called, had shipwrecked many a helpless crew before the Abbot of
Aberbrathock, fifteen miles off, out of pity caused a float to be fixed
on the rock, with a bell attached which, swinging by the motion of the
waves, warned seamen of the danger.

Many years later, when Abbot and Monastery bells had all become things of
the past, a humane naval officer set up two beacons on Bell Rock by
subscription; but they were soon destroyed by the fury of the elements.

At last in 1802, people began to realize the danger of this terrible reef
in the highway of navigation, and the Commissioners appointed Mr. Robert
Stevenson to erect a Light-house on this point.

It was a perilous undertaking, and once the engineer and his workmen made
a very narrow escape from drowning; but it was successfully accomplished
by the brave and skilful Stevenson. Sir Walter thus describes this famous
beacon.

"Its dimensions are well known; but no description can give the idea of
this slight, solitary, round tower, trembling amid the billows, and
fifteen miles from Arbraeth (Aberbrathock), the nearest shore. The
fitting up within is not only handsome, but elegant. All work of wood
(almost) is wainscot; all hammer-work brass; in short, exquisitely fitted
up. You enter by a ladder of rope, with wooden steps, about thirty feet
from the bottom where the mason-work ceases to be solid, and admits of
round apartments. The lowest is a storehouse for the people's provisions