g water
to clear the foundation-pit. This gave much facility to the operations,
and was noticed with expressions of as much happiness by the artificers
as the seamen had shown when relieved of the continual trouble of
carrying the smith's bellows off the rock prior to the erection of the
beacon.

Wednesday, 21st Sept.

Mr. Thomas Macurich, mate of the _Smeaton_, and James Scott, one of the
crew, a young man about eighteen years of age, immediately went into
their boat to make fast a hawser to the ring in the top of the floating
buoy of the moorings, and were forthwith to proceed to land their cargo,
so much wanted, at the rock. The tides at this period were very strong,
and the mooring-chain, when sweeping the ground, had caught hold of a
rock or piece of wreck by which the chain was so shortened that when the
tide flowed the buoy got almost under water, and little more than the
ring appeared at the surface. When Macurich and Scott were in the act of
making the hawser fast to the ring, the chain got suddenly disentangled
at the bottom, and this large buoy, measuring about seven feet in height
and three feet in diameter at the middle, tapering to both ends, being
what seamen term a _Nun-buoy_, vaulted or sprung up with such force that
it upset the boat, which instantly filled with water. Mr. Macurich, with
much exertion, succeeded in getting hold of the boat's gunwale, still
above the surface of the water, and by this means was saved; but the
young man Scott was unfortunately drowned. He had in all probability
been struck about the head by the ring of the buoy, for although
surrounded with the oars and the thwarts of the boat which floated near
him, yet he seemed entirely to want the power of availing himself of
such assistance, and appeared to be quite insensible, while Pool, the
master of the _Smeaton_. called loudly to him; and before assistance
could be got from the tender, he was carried away by the strength of the
current and disappeared.

The young man Scott was a great favourite in the service, having had
something uncommonly mild and complaisant in his manner; and his loss
was therefore universally regretted. The circumstances of his case were
also peculiarly distressing to his mother, as her husband, who was a
seaman, had for three years past been confined to a French prison, and
the deceased was the chief support of the family. In order in some
measure to make up the loss to the poor woman for the monthly