p of this solid part stood the entrance-door of the
building--facing towards the south.

The position of the door was fixed after the solid part had been
exposed to a winter's storms. The effect on the building was such
that the most sheltered or lee side was clearly indicated; the
weather-side being thickly covered with limpets, barnacles, and short
green seaweed, while the lee-side was comparatively free from such
incrustations.

The walls at the entrance-door are nearly seven feet thick, and the
short passage that pierces them leads to the foot of a spiral
staircase, which conducts to the lowest apartment in the tower, where
the walls decrease in thickness to three feet. This room is the
provision store. Here are kept water-tanks and provisions of all
kinds, including fresh vegetables which, with fresh water, are
supplied once a fortnight to the rock all the year round. The
provision store is the smallest apartment, for, as the walls of the
tower decrease in thickness as they rise, the several apartments
necessarily increase as they ascend.

The second floor is reached by a wooden staircase or ladder, leading
up through a "manhole" in the ceiling. Here is the lightroom store,
which contains large tanks of polished metal for the oil consumed by
the lights. A whole year's stock of oil, or about 1100 gallons, is
stored in these tanks. Here also is a small carpenter's bench and
tool-box, besides an endless variety of odds and ends,--such as
paint-pots, brushes, flags, waste for cleaning the reflectors,
&c. &c.

Another stair, similar to the first, leads to the third floor, which
is the kitchen of the building. It stands about sixty-six feet above
the foundation. We shall have occasion to describe it and the rooms
above presently. Meanwhile, let it suffice to say, that the fourth
floor contains the men's sleeping berths, of which there are six,
although three men is the usual complement on the rock. The fifth
floor is the library, and above that is the lantern; the whole
building, from base to summit, being 115 feet high.

At the time when Ruby entered the door of the Bell Rock Lighthouse,
as already described, there were three keepers in the building, one
of whom was on his watch in the lantern, while the other two were in
the kitchen.

These men were all old friends. The man in the lantern was George
Forsyth, who had been appointed one of the light-keepers in
consideration of his good services and steadiness. H