h and fifty-ninth courses. The works were visited by Mr.
Murdoch, junior, from Messrs. Boulton and Watt's works of Soho. He
landed just as the bell rung for prayers, after which the writer enjoyed
much pleasure from his very intelligent conversation; and, having been
almost the only stranger he had seen for some weeks, he parted with him,
after a short interview, with much regret.

Thursday, 28th June.

Last night the wind had shifted to north-east, and, blowing fresh, was
accompanied with a heavy surf upon the rock. Towards high-water it had a
very grand and wonderful appearance. Waves of considerable magnitude
rose as high as the solid or level of the entrance-door, which, being
open to the south-west, was fortunately to the leeward; but on the
windward side the sprays flew like lightning up the sloping sides of the
building; and although the walls were now elevated sixty-four feet above
the rock, and about fifty-two feet from high-water mark, yet the
artificers were nevertheless wetted, and occasionally interrupted, in
their operations on the top of the walls. These appearances were, in a
great measure, new at the Bell Rock, there having till of late been no
building to conduct the seas, or object to compare with them. Although,
from the description of the Eddystone Lighthouse, the mind was prepared
for such effects, yet they were not expected to the present extent in
the summer season; the sea being most awful to-day, whether observed
from the beacon or the building. To windward, the sprays fell from the
height above noticed in the most wonderful cascades, and streamed down
the walls of the building in froth as white as snow. To leeward of the
lighthouse the collision or meeting of the waves produced a pure white
kind of _drift_: it rose about thirty feet in height, like a fine downy
mist, which, in its fall, fell upon the face and hands more like a dry
powder than a liquid substance. The effect of these seas, as they raged
among the beams and dashed upon the higher parts of the beacon, produced
a temporary tremulous motion throughout the whole fabric, which to a
stranger must have been frightful.

Sunday, 1st July.

The writer had now been at the Bell Rock since the latter end of May, or
about six weeks, during four of which he had been a constant inhabitant
of the beacon without having been once off the rock. After witnessing
the laying of the sixty-seventh or second course of the bedroom
apartment, he lef