t Rock as a more eligible site for a pharos, being in the
immediate route of all outward and homeward-bound vessels: but the great
difficulty was to effect a landing, and make the necessary surveys; its
sides being almost perpendicular, and continually lashed by a heavy surge
or surf. After many attempts. Captain Wolfe did effect a landing; and
having made the necessary survey, and reported favorably as to its
advantages, it was determined by the Ballast Board to erect on it a
lighthouse forthwith. Operations were commenced in the summer of 1847, by
sinking or excavating a circular shaft about twelve feet deep in the solid
rock; holes were then drilled, in which were fixed strong iron shafts for
the framework of the house; and then the masons began to rear the edifice.
The workmen found it pleasant enough during the summer and autumn of 1847,
and lived in tents on the summit of the rock, and looked over the mainland
with the aid of a glass, like so many of their predecessors--the
cormorants.

In the spring of 1848, however, when operations were resumed, after a
cessation of the works for the winter, the scene changed. It began to blow
very hard from the northwest; and the men secured their building, which
was now several feet above the rocks, as well as they could, and covered
it over with strong and heavy beams of timber, leaving a small aperture
for ingress and egress, and then awaited in silence the result. During the
night the wind increased, and the sea broke with such fury over the whole
rock, that the men imagined every succeeding wave to be commissioned to
sweep them into the abyss. It only extinguished their fire, however, and
carried off most of their provisions, together with sundry heavy pieces of
cast-iron, a large blacksmith's anvil, and the crane with which the
building materials were lifted on the rock. The storm lasted upward of a
week, during which time no vessel or boat could approach; and the crew of
this island-ship remained drenched with water, and nearly perished with
cold in a dark hole, with nothing to relieve their hunger but water-soaked
biscuit. But the wind at length suddenly shifted, the sea moderated, and
they were enabled eventually to crawl out of their hole more dead than
alive. In a few days a boat approached as near as possible, and by the aid
of ropes fastened round their waists, they were drawn one by one from the
rock through the boiling surf. The men speedily recovered, and have sin