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Updated: May 7, 2025
M. Fresnel mentions that lenses had been used in England so far back as 1789, in the tower light-room at Portland Island, but from some cause or other were discontinued.
Having thus traced the building through some of its principal stages, a brief view in its complete state may here be desirable. This lighthouse is a circular building, forty-two feet in diameter at the base and thirteen feet in diameter at the top. The masonry is one hundred feet high, and the whole structure, with the light-room, measures one hundred and fifteen feet.
Friday, 3rd Aug. At three p.m., the necessary preparations having been made, the artificers commenced the completing of the floors of the several apartments, and at seven o'clock the centre-stone of the light-room floor was laid, which may be held as finishing the masonry of this important national edifice.
I told myself I wouldn't stop. I didn't stop. I felt the landing underfoot and I went on, four steps, five and then I couldn't. I turned and went back. I put out my hand and it went on into nothing. That door, sir, was open again. I left it be; I went on up to the light-room and set to work. It was Bedlam there, sir, screeching Bedlam, but I took no notice. I kept my eyes down.
The sash-frames of the light-room, eight in number, and weighing each 254 pounds, having been got safely up to the top of the building, were ranged on the balcony in the order in which they were numbered for their places on the top of the parapet-wall; and the balance-crane, that useful machine having now lifted all the heavier articles, was unscrewed and lowered, to use the landing- master's phrase, 'in mournful silence.
This evening they were trying to outrun each other in descending from the light-room, when Henderson led the way; but they were in conversation with each other till they came to the rope-ladder distended between the entrance-door of the lighthouse and the beacon. Dickson, on reaching the cook-room, was surprised at not seeing his companion, and inquired hastily for Henderson.
James Slight had charge of the operations of the artificers, while Mr. James Dove and the smiths, having finished the frame of the light-room, left the rock for the present. With these arrangements the writer bade adieu to the works for the season.
Dove gave orders to drop work in the light-room; and all hands proceeded from thence to the beacon-house, when Charles Henderson, smith, and Henry Dickson, brazier, left the work together. Being both young men, who had been for several weeks upon the rock, they had become familiar, and even playful, on the most difficult parts about the beacon and building.
The bedroom was for the present used as the joiners' workshop, and the strangers' room, immediately under the light-room, was occupied by the artificers, the beds being ranged in tiers, as was done in the barrack of the beacon. The light-room, though unprovided with its machinery, being now covered over with the cupola, glazed and painted, had a very complete and cleanly appearance.
The ninetieth or last course of the building having been laid to-day, which brought the masonry to the height of one hundred and two feet six inches, the lintel of the light-room door, being the finishing-stone of the exterior walls, was laid with due formality by the writer, who, at the same time, pronounced the following benediction: "May the Great Architect of the Universe, under whose blessing this perilous work has prospered, preserve it as a guide to the mariner."
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