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Updated: June 7, 2025
Being now within twelve courses of being ready for building the cornice, measures were taken for getting the stones of it and the parapet-wall of the light-room brought from Edinburgh, where, as before noticed, they had been prepared and were in readiness for shipping.
Over this room is an apartment capable of containing a stock of fuel sufficient for one night’s consumption, and is so constructed as to be convertible into a room for the exhibition of a light, in case of accident or repairs being required in the main light-room. This is situated over the store-room just referred to, and is surrounded by a balcony and a circular stone parapet.
The Smeaton now lay in Leith loaded, but, the wind and weather being so unfavourable for her getting down the Firth, she did not sail till this afternoon. It may be here proper to notice that the loading of the centre of the light-room floor, or last principal stone of the building, did not fail, when put on board, to excite an interest among those connected with the work.
To obviate such dangerous mistakes, there was no other method but the introduction of a light from oil, with reflectors inclosed in a glazed light-room.
The steps of the stair being landed, and all the weightier articles of the light-room got up to the balcony, the wooden bridge was now to be removed, as it had a very powerful effect upon the beacon when a heavy sea struck it, and could not possibly have withstood the storms of a winter.
The wind had fortunately shifted to the S.W., and about five o'clock this afternoon the Smeaton reached the Bell Rock. The artificers had finished the laying of the balcony course, excepting the centre-stone of the light-room floor, which, like the centres of the other floors, could not be laid in its place till after the removal of the foot and shaft of the balance-crane.
The second, or light-room store, was at present much encumbered with various tools and apparatus for the use of the workmen. The kitchen immediately over this had, as yet, been supplied only with a common ship's caboose and plate-iron funnel, while the necessary cooking utensils had been taken from the beacon.
Stevenson says that the light-keepers were, upon the whole, pleased with their situation, and talked in a feeling manner of the hardships of mariners whom they often saw tossed about during the storms of winter. According to the present system of Northern lighthouses, the watches in the light-room are as regularly relieved as on ship-board.
At the rock the landing of the materials and the building operations of the light-room store went on successfully, and in a way similar to those of the provision store. To-day it blew fresh breezes; but the seamen nevertheless landed twenty-eight stones, and the artificers built the fifty-eighth and fifty-ninth courses. The works were visited by Mr. Murdoch, junior, from Messrs.
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."
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