exercised with the idea of a light upon this formidable
danger. To build a tower on a sea rock, eleven miles from

shore, and barely uncovered at low water of neaps, appeared a
fascinating enterprise. It was something yet unattempted,

unessayed; and even now, after it has been lighted for more
than eighty years, it is still an exploit that has never been

repeated. (1) My grandfather was, besides, but a young man,
of an experience comparatively restricted, and a reputation

confined to Scotland; and when he prepared his first models,
and exhibited them in Merchants' Hall, he can hardly be

acquitted of audacity. John Clerk of Eldin stood his friend
from the beginning, kept the key of the model room, to which

he carried `eminent strangers,' and found words of counsel and
encouragement beyond price. `Mr. Clerk had been personally

known to Smeaton, and used occasionally" target="_blank" title="ad.偶然地；非经常地">occasionally to speak of him to
me,' says my grandfather; and again: `I felt regret that I had

not the opportunity of a greater range of practice to fit me
for such an undertaking; but I was fortified by an expression

of my friend Mr. Clerk in one of our conversations. "This
work," said he, "is unique, and can be little forwarded by

experience of ordinary masonic operations. In this case
Smeaton's `Narrative' must be the text-book, and energy and

perseverance the pratique." '
(1) The particular event which concentrated Mr.

Stevenson's attention on the problem of the Bell Rock was the
memorable gale of December 1799, when, among many other

vessels, H.M.S. YORK, a seventy-four-gun ship, went down with
all hands on board. Shortly after this disaster Mr. Stevenson

made a careful survey, and prepared his models for a stone
tower, the idea of which was at first received with pretty

general scepticism, Smeaton's Eddystone tower could not be
cited as affording a parallel, for there the rock is not

submerged even at high-water, while the problem of the Bell
Rock was to build a tower of masonry on a sunken reef far

distant from land, covered at every tide to a depth of twelve
feet or more, and having thirty-two fathoms' depth of water

within a mile of its eastern edge.
A Bill for the work was introduced into Parliament and

lost in the Lords in 1802-3. John Rennie was afterwards, at
my grandfather's suggestion, called in council, with the style

of chief engineer. The precise meaning attached to these
words by any of the parties appears irrecoverable. Chief

engineer should have full authority, full responsibility, and
a proper share of the emoluments; and there were none of these

for Rennie. I find in an appendix a paper which resumes the
controversy on this subject; and it will be enough to say here

that Rennie did not design the Bell Rock, that he did not
execute it, and that he was not paid for it. (1) From so much

of the correspondence as has come down to me, the acquaintance
of this man, eleven years his senior, and already famous,

appears to have been both useful and agreeable to Robert
Stevenson. It is amusing to find my grandfather seeking high

and low for a brace of pistols which his colleague had lost by
the way between Aberdeen and Edinburgh; and writing to Messrs.

Dollond, `I have not thought it necessary to trouble Mr.
Rennie with this order, but I BEG YOU WILL SEE TO GET TWO

MINUTES OF HIM AS HE PASSES YOUR DOOR' - a proposal calculated
rather from the latitude of Edinburgh than from London, even

in 1807. It is pretty, too, to observe with what affectionate
regard Smeaton was held in mind by his immediate successors.

`Poor old fellow,' writes Rennie to Stevenson, `I hope he will
now and then take a peep at us, and inspire you with fortitude

and courage to brave all difficulties and dangers to
accomplish a work which will, if successful, immortalise you

in the annals of fame.' The style might be bettered, but the
sentiment is charming.

(1) The grounds for the rejection of the Bill by the
House of Lords in 1802-3 had been that the extent of coast

over which dues were proposed to be levied would be too great.
Before going to Parliament again, the Board of Northern

Lights, desiring to obtain support and corroboration for Mr.
Stevenson's views, consulted first Telford, who was unable to

give the matter his attention, and then (on Stevenson's
suggestion) Rennie, who concurred in affirming the

practicability of a stone tower, and supported the Bill when
it came again before Parliament in 1806. Rennie was

afterwards appointed by the Commissioners as advising
engineer, whom Stevenson might consult in cases of emergency.

It seems certain that the title of chief engineer had in this
instance no more meaning than the above. Rennie, in point of

fact, proposed certain modifications in Stevenson's plans,
which the latter did not accept; nevertheless Rennie continued

to take a kindly interest in the work, and the two engineers
remained in friendly correspondence during its progress. The

official view taken by the Board as to the quarter in which
lay both the merit and the responsibility of the work may be

gathered from a minute of the Commissioners at their first
meeting held after Stevenson died; in which they record their

regret `at the death of this zealous, faithful, and able
officer, TO WHOM IS DUE THE HONOUR OF CONCEIVING AND EXECUTING

THE BELL ROCK LIGHTHOUSE.' The matter is briefly summed up in
the LIFE of Robert Stevenson by his son David Stevenson (A. &

C. Black, 1878), and fully discussed, on the basis of official
facts and figures, by the same writer in a letter to the CIVIL

ENGINEERS' AND ARCHITECTS' JOURNAL, 1862.
Smeaton was, indeed, the patron saint of the Bell Rock.

Undeterred by the sinister fate of Winstanley, he had tackled
and solved the problem of the Eddystone; but his solution had

not been in all respects perfect. It remained for my grand-
father to outdo him in daring, by applying to a tidal rock

those principles which had been already justified by the
success of the Eddystone, and to perfect the model by more

than one exemplary departure. Smeaton had adopted in his
floors the principle of the arch; each therefore exercised an

outward thrust upon the walls, which must be met and combated
by embedded chains. My grandfather's flooring-stones, on the

other hand, were flat, made part of the outer wall, and were
keyed and dovetailed into a central stone, so as to bind the

work together and be positive elements of strength. In 1703
Winstanley still thought it possible to erect his strange

pagoda, with its open gallery, its florid scrolls and
candlesticks: like a rich man's folly for an ornamental water

in a park. Smeaton followed; then Stevenson in his turn
corrected such flaws as were left in Smeaton's design; and

with his improvements, it is not too much to say the model was
made perfect. Smeaton and Stevenson had between them evolved

and finished the sea-tower. No subsequentbuilder has
departed in anything essential from the principles of their

design. It remains, and it seems to us as though it must
remain for ever, an ideal attained. Every stone in the

building, it may interest the reader to know, my grandfather
had himself cut out in the model; and the manner in which the

courses were fitted, joggled, trenailed, wedged, and the bond
broken, is intricate as a puzzle and beautiful by ingenuity.

In 1806 a second Bill passed both Houses, and the
preliminary works were at once begun. The same year the Navy

had taken a great harvest of prizes in the North Sea, one of
which, a Prussian fishing dogger, flat-bottomed and rounded at

the stem and stern, was purchased to be a floating lightship,
and re-named the PHAROS. By July 1807 she was overhauled,

rigged for her new purpose, and turned into the lee of the
Isle of May. `It was proposed that the whole party should

meet in her and pass the night; but she rolled from side to
side in so extraordinary a manner, that even the most seahardy