Everything being in readiness for commencing operations, the divers entered the bell and were cautiously lowered to the place at which the building was to proceed. A code of signals was established by which the workmen could indicate, by striking the side of the bell a certain number of strokes with a hammer, whether they wished it to be moved upward, downward, or horizontally; and also to signal for the descent of materials of any kind. By this means they were enabled, with the assistance of the workmen above, to raise and lower, and place in their proper bed, stones of the heaviest description; and by repeating the process from day to day, and from week to week, the work was accomplished with as much exactness and almost as much expedition. under water as though it had been carried on above ground.

Thus the entire repairs were completed by the 9th of July, 1814; and to commemorate the ingenuity and skill with which Mr. Rennie had overcome the extraordinary difficulties of the undertaking, the trustees of the harbour caused a memorial stone to be fixed in the centre of the new pier-head, bearing a bronze plate, on which were briefly recorded the facts above referred to, and acknowledging the obligation of the trustees to their engineer. They also presented him at a public entertainment with a handsome piece of plate in commemoration of the successful completion of the work. The diving-bell, as thus improved by Mr. Rennie, has since been extensively employed in similar works; and although detached divers, with apparatus attached to them, are made use of in deep sea works, the simplicity, economy, and expeditiousness of the plan invented by Mr. Rennie, and afterwards improved by himself, continue to recommend it for adoption in all undertakings of a similar character.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE BELL ROCK LIGHTHOUSE.

ABOUT eleven miles eastward from the mainland of Scotland, near the entrances to the Friths of Forth and Tay, lies an extensive ledge of rocks, which for a long time was the terror of the seamen navigating that coast. It is nearly two miles in length, being the crest of a mountain rising from the sea bottom, only a small part of which is visible at high water. This sunken reef was a source of such peril, that, as peril, that, as early as the fourteenth century, the Abbot of Arbroath caused a bell to be placed upon the principal rock, the swinging of which by the motion of the waves warned seamen of its dangers; and from this circumstance it came to be called. the Bell Rock. It is affirmed that a notorious pirate, in order to plague the Abbot, cut the bell from the rock, but was himself afterwards wrecked on the very spot; and on this tradition Southey founded his beautiful ballad of 'Ralph the Rover.''

Nothing was done to replace the bell, or to set a beacon upon the reef; and it remained in its dangerous state the Eddystone of the northern seas-until the beginning of the present century, when the increasing commerce of Scotland, and the large number of vessels

1 The following is the tradition as given by an old writer:-"By the east of the Isle of May, twelve miles from all land in the German Sea, lyes a great hidden rock called Inchcape, very dangerous to the navigators, because it is overflowed every tide. It is reported that, in old times, there was upon the said rock a bell, fixed upon a tree or timber, which

rang continually, being moved by the sea, giving notice to the saylors of the danger. This bell or clocke was put there by the Abbot of Aberbrothock, and, being taken down by a seapirate, a yeare thereafter he perished upon the same rock, with ship and goodes, by the righteous judgment of God."-Stoddart's Remarks on Scot

land.'

wrecked there, had the effect of directing public attention to the subject. As in the case of the Eddystone reef, the sailors' fear of it was such, that in order to avoid its dangers, they hugged the land so close as very frequently to run ashore.1

Notwithstanding the dangerous character of the Scotch coast, very little had been done for the protection of navigation by the erection of lighthouses until towards the end of last century. As in England, several beacons were erected under private grants, and others under local trusts. There was one on the Isle of May at the entrance to the Frith of Forth, another on the Cumbraes at the mouth of the Clyde, and a few others on rocky promontories on the eastern and western coasts. The lights exhibited were mostly of a rude kind, and in some cases consisted of coal fires in chauffers; though, all that was needed being a light, they probably answered their purpose, but in a clumsy way. The most dangerous reef of all, however, was still left without any protection; and doubtless the delay in providing a light upon the Bell Rock arose from the great difficulty and expense of erecting a suitable structure on such a site.

In the winter of 1799, a tempest, memorable for its violence and fatal effects, ravaged the coasts, and drove from their anchors all the ships lying in Yarmouth

1 Captain Basil Hall relates that, when a boy, he was constantly hearing of vessels getting wrecked through fear of that terrible Bell Rock, which lay about ten leagues due north of the house in which he was born--at Dunglass, on the borders of East Lothian, not far from the bold promontory on which Fast-Castle stands, overlooking the German Ocean; and he relates that "ships bound for the Forth, in their constant terror of the dangerous reef, were not content with giving it ten or even twenty miles of elbow-room, but must needs edge off a little more to the south, so as to hug the shore, in such a way that,

when the wind chopped round to the northward, as it often did, these overcautious navigators were apt to get embayed in a deep bight to the westward of Fast-Castle. If the breeze freshened before they could work out, they paid dearly for their apprehensions of the Bell Rock, by driving upon ledges fully as sharp, and far more extensive and inevitable. Thus," he says, "at that time, from three to four, and sometimes half-a-dozen vessels used to be wrecked every winter, within a mile or two of our very door."— Fragments of Voyages and Travels,' vol. i., p. 15, 16. Edinburgh, 1831.

Roads. The greater part were wrecked on the northern coast; and it was believed that many of them might have been saved, had a light been fixed on the Bell Rock to point out the entrances to the Friths of Forth and Tay. Among the other lamentable shipwrecks which took place on the Inchcape about the same time, was that of the York, a seventy-four-gun ship, which went down with all her crew. The reef was also a constant source of danger to the shipping of Dundee, then rising in importance, as it lay right in the main track of vessels making the mouth of the Tay from the German Ocean.

Many were the plans suggested for a lighthouse on the Bell Rock. In 1799 Captain Brodie submitted to the Commissioners of Northern Lights his design of a cast iron tower, to be supported on four pillars; but it was not adopted. In the mean time temporary beacons of timber were employed; but these rarely stood the storms of a single winter; and three successive structures of this kind were completely swept away. Mr. Robert Stevenson and Mr. Downie also proposed plans (the former of a building of stone) between 1800 and 1804; but neither of them was adopted. Considerable diversity of opinion continuing to exist, the Commissioners determined to employ Mr. Rennie to examine the site and report as to the best course to be pursued. He accordingly proceeded to Scotland, and visited the Inchcape on the 17th of August, 1805, in company with Mr. Hamilton, one of the Commissioners, and Mr. Stevenson, their engineer.

After mature deliberation, he sent in his report on the 30th of December following. The purport of it was, a recommendation to erect a substantial lighthouse of stone, similar to that on the Eddystone, as being, in his opinion, the only structure calculated to meet the necessities of the case. He regarded a wooden building as objectionable, because of the perish

VOL. II.

Q

able character of the material, and its liability to be destroyed by fire. Although it would be possible to erect a lighthouse of cast iron, its cost at that time would have been equal to one of stone, with which, in point of durability, it was not to be compared. "I have therefore," he concluded, "no hesitation in giving a decided opinion in favour of a stone lighthouse." With such examples as the Tour de Cordouan near the entrance of the Garonne, and the Eddystone off the coast of Cornwall, he held that there could be no doubt as to the superiority of this plan to any other that could be proposed. Although the Inchcape was not so long uncovered by the tide as the Eddystone rock, and there might be greater delay in getting in the first four or five courses of the foundation, this was only a question of time; and he had no doubt that this difficulty could be overcome, and the whole structure completed in the space of about four years. In his report he further says: "Mr. Stevenson, to whose merit I am happy to bear testimony, has been indefatigable in obtaining information respecting this rock, and he has made a model of a stone lighthouse nearly resembling that of the Eddystone, in which he has proposed various ingenious methods of constructing the work by way of facilitating the operations. I own, however, after fully considering them, and comparing them with the construction of Mr. Smeaton-I mean in the process of building and also reflecting that there are undoubted proofs of the stability of the Eddystone, that I am inclined to give the latter the preference; its general construction, in my opinion, rendering it as strong as can well be conceived." But, taking into account that the foundation of the proposed building lay so much lower in the sea, he suggested that the column should be somewhat higher, so that the eave of the cupola should be about 100 feet above the surface of the rock, the Eddystone being only 84 feet 6 inches,-though this alteration would involve a somewhat greater diameter