ns,
required fifty-four holes, each measuring two inches in diameter and
eighteen inches in depth. There had already been so considerable a
progress made in boring and excavating the holes that the writer's hopes
of getting the beacon erected this year began to be more and more
confirmed, although it was now advancing towards what was considered the
latter end of the proper working season at the Bell Rock. The foreman
joiner, Mr. Francis Watt, was accordingly appointed to attend at the
rock to-day, when the necessary levels were taken for the step or seat
of each particular beam of the beacon, that they might be cut to their
respective lengths, to suit the inequalities of the rock; several of the
stanchions were also tried into their places, and other necessary
observations made, to prevent mistakes on the application of the
apparatus, and to facilitate the operations when the beams came to be
set up, which would require to be done in the course of a single tide.

Tuesday, 25th Aug.

We had now experienced an almost unvaried tract of light airs of
easterly wind, with clear weather in the fore-part of the day and fog in
the evenings. To-day, however, it sensibly changed; when the wind came
to the south-west, and blew a fresh breeze. At nine a.m. the bell rung,
and the boats were hoisted out, and though the artificers were now
pretty well accustomed to tripping up and down the sides of the floating
light, yet it required more seamanship this morning than usual. It
therefore afforded some merriment to those who had got fairly seated in
their respective boats to see the difficulties which attended their
companions, and the hesitating manner in which they quitted hold of the
man-ropes in leaving the ship. The passage to the rock was tedious, and
the boats did not reach it till half-past ten.

It being now the period of neap-tides, the water only partially left the
rock, and some of the men who were boring on the lower ledges of the
site of the beacon stood knee-deep in water. The situation of the smith
to-day was particularly disagreeable, but his services were at all times
indispensable. As the tide did not leave the site of the forge, he stood
in the water, and as there was some roughness on the surface it was with
considerable difficulty that, with the assistance of the sailors, he was
enabled to preserve alive his fire; and, while his feet were immersed in
water, his face was not only scorched but continually exposed