THE LIGHTHOUSE (_continued_).
The Bell Rock—The good Abbot of Arberbrothok—Ralph the
Rover—Rennie’s grand Lighthouse—Perils of the Work—Thirty-two Men
apparently doomed to Destruction—A New Form of Outward
Construction—Its successful Completion—The Skerryvore Lighthouse
and Alan Stevenson—Novel Barracks on the Rock—Swept Away in a
Storm—The Unshapely Seal and Unfortunate Cod—Half-starved
Workmen—Out of Tobacco—Difficulties of Landing the Stones—Visit of
M. de Quatrefages to Héhaux—Description of the Lighthouse
Exterior—How it Rocks—Practice _versus_ Theory—The Interior—A
Parisian Apartment at Sea.
Some eleven miles eastward from the mainland of Scotland, near the
entrances to the Firths of Forth and Tay, lies an extensive ledge of very
dangerous rocks, nearly two miles in length. This sunken reef was a source
of much peril to the unfortunate sailors driven too near its nearly hidden
dangers, and early in the fourteenth century the Abbot of Arbroath, or
Arberbrothok, caused a bell to be placed upon the principal rock, so that—
“When the Rock was hid by the surge’s swell,
The mariners heard the warning bell;
And then they knew the perilous Rock,
And blessed the Abbot of Arberbrothok.”
Southey has, in his ballad of “The Inchcape Rock,” immortalised the
tradition(56) that a notorious pirate cut the bell from the rock—
“Down sank the bell with a gurgling sound,
The bubbles arose and burst around;
Quoth Sir Ralph, ‘The next who comes to the Rock,
Won’t bless the Abbot of Arberbrothok.’”
And so the rover sailed away, and grew rich with plundered store, till at
length he thought of Scotland once again, and turned his vessel’s head for
home. He approached her coasts in haze and fog, and knew he could not be
far from the rocky shore.
“They hear no sound, the swell is strong;
Though the wind hath fallen they drift along,
Till the vessel strikes with a shivering shock,—
‘Oh, Christ! it is the Inchcape Rock!’
“Sir Ralph the Rover tore his hair;
He curst himself in his despair;
The waves rush in on every side,
The ship is sinking beneath the tide.”
Nothing was done to replace the bell or set a beacon on the reef until the
beginning of the present century, when, after many plans had been
discussed, John Rennie was ordered by the Board of Commissioners to
examine the site and report on the subject generally. He recommended a
substantial stone lighthouse, similar to that on the Eddystone. Although
the Inchcape Rock was not so long uncovered by the tide as the former,
after a few courses had been laid, there would be no greater delay in
completing the building. The Commissioners obtained from Parliament the
requisite powers in 1806; Rennie was appointed engineer, with Robert
Stevenson as assistant engineer.
The whole of the year 1807 was occupied in constructing the necessary
vessels for conveying the stones, and in erecting suitable machinery and
building shops at Arbroath, which was fixed upon as the most convenient
point on the coast for carrying on the land operations. Some progress was
made on the rock itself, where a smith’s forge was erected and a temporary
beacon raised, while a floating light, fitted up on an old fishing-boat,
was anchored near the reef until the lighthouse could be completed. During
the short period in which the rocks were uncovered or unexposed to the
fury of the waves, some progress was made with the excavations for the
foundations. The dangerous nature of the employment may be illustrated by
the following brief account of an accident which happened to the workmen
on the 2nd of September, before the excavation for the first course of
stones had been completed. An additional number of masons had that morning
come off from Arbroath in the tender named the _Smeaton_, in honour of the
engineer of the Eddystone, and had landed them safely on the rock. The
vessel rode off at some distance. The wind rising, the men began to be
uneasy as to the security of the _Smeaton’s_ cables, and a party went off
in a boat to examine whether she was secure, but before they could reach
the vessel’s side they found she had already gone adrift, leaving the
greater part of the men upon the reef in the face of a rising tide.
By the time the _Smeaton’s_ crew had got her mainsail set, and made a tack
towards their companions, she had drifted about three miles to leeward,
with both wind and tide against her, and it was clear that she could not
possibly make the rock until long after it had been completely covered.
There were thirty-two men in all on the rock, provided with but two boats,
capable of carrying only twenty-four persons in fine weather. Mr.
Stevenson seems to have behaved with great coolness and presence of mind;
though he afterwards confessed that of the two feelings of hope and
despair the latter largely predominated. Fully persuaded of the perils of
the situation, he kept his fears to himself, and allowed the men to
continue their occupations of boring and excavating.
“After working for about three hours, the water began to rise along the
lower parts of the foundations, and the men were compelled to desist. The
forge-fire became extinguished; the smith ceased from hammering at the
anvil, and the masons from hewing and boring; and when they took up their
tools to depart, and looked around, their vessel was not to be seen, and
the third of their boats had gone after the _Smeaton_, which was drifting
away in the distance! Not a word was uttered, but the danger of their
position was comprehended by all. They looked towards their master in
silence; but the anxiety which had been growing in his mind for some time
had now become so intense that he was speechless. When he attempted to
speak, he was so parched that his tongue refused utterance. Turning to one
of the pools on the rock, he lapped a little water, which gave him relief,
though it was salt; but what was his happiness when, on raising his head,
some one called out, ‘A boat! a boat!’ and sure enough a large boat was
seen through the surge making for them. She proved to be the Bell Rock
pilot-boat, which had come off from Arbroath with letters, and her timely
arrival doubtless saved the lives of the greater part of the workmen. They
were all taken off and landed in safety, though completely drenched and
exhausted.”
Rennie, accompanied by one of his sons, visited the rock on the 5th of
October, 1807, the day before the works were suspended for the winter.
They came off from Arbroath, and stayed on board the lighthouse-yacht all
night, where Stevenson met him, and has recorded the delightful
conversations held on general and professional matters. On the following
morning Rennie landed, amidst great _éclat_ and a display of all the
available colours, to inspect the progress made. The whole party, workmen
and all, returned to shore for the season that day.
The preparation of the stone blocks occupied next winter, and by the
spring large numbers were ready and were floated off. In May, 1808, the
excavations on the rock were continued, and on the 10th of July the first
stone was laid with considerable ceremony. By the last week of November
three courses of masonry had been laid. By the end of 1809 the tower had
been built to a height of thirty feet, and was almost secure from the fury
of the waves. “In his report to the commissioners he stated that he found
that the form of slope which he had adopted for the base of the tower, as
well as the curve of the building, fully answered his expectations—that
they presented comparatively small obstructions to the roll of the waves,
which played round the column with ease.” The curve of this tower at the
base is much greater than that of the Eddystone. The Bell Rock Lighthouse
was completed by the end of 1810, and the light was regularly exhibited
after the 1st of February, 1811. Counting to the top of the lantern, it is
127 feet high. It may here be remarked that in many works the credit of
designing and building this lighthouse has been given to Robert Stevenson,
the resident engineer. Rennie, however, has the only rightful claim to be
so considered; he acted throughout as chief engineer, furnished the design
down to the pettiest details, settled the kind of stone and other
materials to be used, down even to the mortar and mode of mixing it.
Another work of great labour and difficulty was the erection of a
lighthouse on the Skerryvore Rocks, which lie twelve miles W.S.W. of the
Isle of Tyree in Argyllshire, and were formerly the scene of numerous
wrecks. The operations were commenced in 1838, the architect being Alan
Stevenson, son of the Robert Stevenson who was employed on the Bell Rock
Lighthouse. The engineer gave the world a succinct account(57) of the
difficulties, dangers, and successful issue of the undertaking.
[Illustration: LIGHTHOUSE ON THE INCHCAPE ROCK.]
The actual construction of the lighthouse had no very remarkable points of
difference with the works of Smeaton or Rennie. Stevenson built a rather
novel structure on the rock as a temporary barrack for the workmen. It
consisted of a wooden tower perched upon a triangular framework, under
which was an open gallery, the floor of which was removed at the end of
each season, so as to allow free space for the passage of the sea during
the storms of winter, but on which, during summer, they kept the stock of
coals, the tool-chest, the beef and beer casks, and other smaller
material, which they could not, even at that season of the year, leave on
the rock itself. Next came the kitchen and provision-store, a six-sided
apartment about twelve feet in diameter, and somewhat more than seven feet
high, in which small space—curtailed as it was by the seven beams which
passed through it—stood a caboose, capable of cooking for forty men, and
various cupboards and lockers lined with tin, for holding biscuits, meal
and flour, &c. The next storey held two apartments: one for Mr. Stevenson,
in which he had his hammock, desk, chair and table, books and instruments.
The top storey was surmounted by a pyramidal roof, and was lined with four
tiers of berths, capable of accommodating thirty people. The framework was
erected on a part of the rock as far removed as possible from the proposed
foundation of the lighthouse tower; but in a great gale which occurred on
the 3rd of November it was entirely destroyed and swept from the rock,
nothing remaining to point out its site but a few broken and twisted iron
stanchions, and attached to one of them a piece of a beam, so shaken and
rent by dashing against the rock as literally to resemble a bunch of
laths. Thus did one night obliterate the traces of a season’s toil, and
blast the hopes which the workmen fondly cherished of a stable dwelling on
the rock, and of refuge from the miseries of sea-sickness, which the
experience of the season had taught many of them to dread more than death
itself. A more successful attempt was subsequently made, and the second
erection braved the storm for several years after the works were finished.
“Perched forty feet above the wave-beaten rock,” says Stevenson, “in this
singular abode, the writer of this little volume(58) has spent many a
weary day and night at those times when the sea prevented any one going
down to the rock, anxiously looking for supplies from the shore, and
earnestly longing for a change of weather favourable to the
re-commencement of the works. For miles around nothing could be seen but
white foaming breakers, and nothing heard but howling winds and lashing
seas. At such seasons most of our time was spent in bed; for there alone
we had effectual shelter from the winds and the spray, which searched
every cranny in the walls of the barrack. Our slumbers, too, were at times
fearfully interrupted by the sudden pouring of the sea over the roof, the
rocking of the house on its pillars, and the spirting of water through the
seams of the doors and windows: symptoms which, to one suddenly aroused
from sound sleep, recalled the appalling fate of the former barrack, which
had been engulfed in the foam not twenty yards from our dwelling, and for
a moment seemed to summon us to a similar fate. On two occasions, in
particular, those sensations were so vivid as to cause almost every one to
spring out of bed; and some of the men flew from the barrack by a
temporary gangway to the more stable but less comfortable shelter afforded
by the bare wall of the lighthouse tower, then unfinished, where they
spent the remainder of the night in the darkness and the cold.”
Yet life on the Skerryvore was by no means destitute of its peculiar
pleasures. The grandeur of the ocean’s rage, the deep murmur of the waves,
the hoarse cry of the sea-birds, were varied by peaceful hours, when the
sea was glassy and the deep blue vault of heaven was studded with a
thousand stars. “Among the many wonders of the ‘great deep,’” says
Stevenson, “which we witnessed at the Skerryvore, not the least is the
agility and power displayed by the unshapely seal. I have often seen half
a dozen of these animals round the rock, playing on the surface or riding
on the crests of curling waves, come so close as to permit us to see their
eyes and head, and lead us to expect that they would be thrown _high and
dry_ at the foot of the tower; when suddenly they performed a somersault
within a few feet of the rock, and diving into the flaky and wreathing
foam, disappeared, and as suddenly re-appeared a hundred yards off,
uttering a strange low cry.”
On one occasion the tender could not come off to the poor people on the
rock for seven weeks. The seamen passed a most dreary time. Their
provisions and fuel were short; their clothes were worn to rags; and, what
was to them of more importance still, they _were out of tobacco_!
One of the great difficulties experienced was landing the stones on the
rock from the lighters, which, towed out by a steamer, were cast off as
near the landing-place as possible and then towed in by boats. The landing
service throughout the whole progress of the works was one of danger and
anxiety, and many narrow escapes were made. On many occasions the men who
steered the lighters ran great risks, and it was often found necessary to
lash them to the rails, to prevent them being thrown overboard by the
sudden bounds of the vessels, or being carried away by the weight of water
which swept their decks as they were towed through a heavy sea. Sometimes
they were forced, owing to the heavy seas which threatened to throw the
vessels on the top of the rock, to draw out the lighters from the wharf
without landing a single stone, after they had been towed through a stormy
passage of thirteen miles. One day, during the very best part of the
season, so sudden were the jerks of the vessel before the sea, that eight
large warps, or cables, were snapped like threads, and the lighter was
carried violently before a crested wave which rolled unexpectedly upon
her. Those who stood on deck were thrown flat on their faces, and imagined
that the vessel had been laid high and dry on the top of the rock. Yet, in
spite of the short season and great difficulties of the work, no less than
120 lighters were towed out and discharged in the summer and autumn of
1841. During the progress of building the lighthouse, cranes and other
materials were swept away by the waves, and daily risks were run in
blasting the splintery gneiss, or by the falling of heavy bodies from the
tower on the narrow space below, to which so many persons were necessarily
confined. Yet no loss of life or limb occurred; and “our remarkable
preservation was viewed,” says Stevenson, “as in a peculiar manner the
gracious work of Him by whom ‘the very hairs of our head are all
numbered.’”
The light was first exhibited on the 1st of February, 1844. It is a
revolving apparatus, and the light appears at its brightest state once in
every minute. The lantern is no less than 150 feet above the sea, and its
flashes may be seen from the deck of a vessel eighteen miles off. It is
frequently seen from the high land of Barra, distant thirty-eight miles.
The mass of stonework is double that of the Bell Rock Lighthouse, and five
times that of the Eddystone; it measures 58,580 cubic feet. The Skerryvore
Light-tower was erected at a cost of £86,977 17s. 7d.
[Illustration: THE SKERRYVORE LIGHTHOUSE.]
The eminent French naturalist, M. de Quatrefages, has given us an
admirable description(59) of a visit paid by him to the lighthouse of
Héhaux, on a rock near the Isles of Bréhat, off the coast of Brittany. He
says, after some very beautiful remarks on the contemplation of nature,
and its alleviation of the worst heart-sorrows: “Twilight often surprised
me in the midst of my reveries, and often, too, the shades of night fell
around me while I lay stretched beneath the star-bespangled deep azure
canopy of heaven. I could then see another star shining in the far
distance, which had been lighted by the hand of man. From the position I
had chosen I could recognise the beacon-towers of Héhaux, of which the
seamen of the islands had spoken to me with the liveliest expressions of
enthusiasm, and which I had frequently watched by day as it stood out like
a black line drawn along the whitish background of the sky. I would not
leave Bréhat without visiting it. A few slight services had secured me the
good-will of the officers of customs, who willingly consented to take me
to Héhaux. Accordingly, one splendid day in October we left the harbour of
La Corderie in a pinnace, manned by six sturdy seamen. The weather was
splendid; not a cloud obscured the sky, which was reflected on the
mirror-like surface of the ocean, whose depths it seemed to double.
Impelled by the combined action of a light wind, which swelled out two
small square sails, and of the rapid current imparted to the waters of
Kerpont by the force of the tide, our pinnace shot across the waves as a
sledge glides over the snow. Sometimes, indeed, we passed through a
whirling eddy, which shook every part of our frail craft, and betrayed the
vicinity of some submarine rock; but we soon regained the unruffled sea,
and without having taken cognisance of the rapid rate at which we were
moving, we saw Bréhat sink below the distant horizon behind us, whilst
rock after rock and islet after islet seemed at every moment to emerge
from the waves towards which we were advancing.... The nearer we drew to
Héhaux the taller seemed the beacon-tower, which stood forth from the
tower, with its lofty granite column and glass lantern, protected by that
magical rod which is able to attract and safely conduct to earth the
destructive force of the thunderbolt. We landed, and at once began our
inspection of this colossal block, which has been upreared by the hand of
man on the Epées de Tréguier, which, once the dread of the seaman, have
become his protecting guides through the storms and darkness of night.
“The Héhaux Lighthouse would be regarded as a most remarkable monument
even in our principal towns, but standing, as it does, alone in the midst
of the ocean, it acquires by its very isolation a character of severe
grandeur, which impresses the mind most powerfully. Figure to yourself a
wall of granite, where the current and the storm do not even permit the
hardiest ferns to take root, with here and there a twisted and deeply
wave-worn mass projecting beyond the rest of the rocky ledge. It is here
that the architect has laid the foundation of the tower. The base, which
is of a conical form, is surmounted by a circular gallery. The lower
portion curves gracefully outwards, spreading over the ground like the
root of some colossal marine plant springing up from the foundation
stones, which have been inserted far within the rock. On this base, which
measures about twenty yards across, rises a column twenty-six feet in
diameter, surmounted by a second gallery, whose supports and stone
balustrades call to mind the portcullis and battlements of some feudal
donjon. From the summit to the base this part of the edifice is composed
of large blocks of whitish granite, arranged in regular strata, and
carefully dove-tailed into one another. As far as a third of the height of
the building the rows of stones are bound together by granite joggles,
which at the same time penetrate into the two superposed stones. The
stones have been cut and arranged with such precision that there has been
hardly any reason for using cement, which has only been employed in
filling up a few imperceptible voids: and hence the lighthouse, from the
base to the summit, seems to form one solid block, which is more
homogeneous and probably more compact than the rocks which support it. The
platform which crowns this magnificent column, at an elevation of more
than 140 feet above high tide watermark, is surmounted by a stone cupola,
at once solid and graceful, supported by pillars which are separated by
large panes of glass. It is within this frame of glass that the beacon is
lighted, which may be distinctly seen from every direction at a distance
of twenty-seven miles.
“At low tide the sea leaves a space of several hundred square yards
uncovered round the base of the edifice; at high tide it entirely
surrounds it. It is then that the tower of Héhaux rises in its solemn
isolation from the midst of the waves, as if it were a standard of
defiance upraised by the genius of man against the demon of the tempest.
At times one might almost fancy that the heavens and the sea, conscious of
the outrage offered to them, were leagued together against the enemy,
which seems to brave them by its imperturbability. The north-west wind
roars round the tower, darkening its thick glass windows with torrents of
rain and drifts of snow and hail. These impetuous blasts bear along with
them from the far-spread ocean colossal waves, whose crests not
unfrequently reach the first gallery, but these fluid masses slide away
from the round and polished surfaces of the granite, which leave them no
points of adhesion, and darting their long lines of foam above the cupola,
they break with thundering roar against the rocks of Stallio-Bras or the
boulders of Sillon. The tower supports these terrific assaults without
injury, although it bends, as if in homage, before the might of its foes.
I was assured by the keepers that during a violent storm the oil in the
lamps of the highest rooms presents a variation of level exceeding an
inch, which would lead us to assume that the summit of the tower describes
an arc of about a yard in extent. This very flexibility seems, however, in
itself a proof of durability. At all events, we meet with similar
conditions in several monuments, which for ages have braved the inclemency
of recurring seasons. The spire of Strasburg Cathedral, in particular,
bends its long ogives and slender pinnacles beneath the force of the
winds, while the cross on its summit oscillates at an elevation of more
than 450 feet above the ground.
“To construct a monument on these rocks, which seemed the very focus of
all the storms which raged on that part of our coasts, was like building
an edifice in the open sea. Such a project must, indeed, have appeared at
first sight almost impracticable. After their third season of labour, the
workmen completed the foundations of the tower and fixed the key-stone of
the cupola. In vain did difficulties of every kind combine with the winds
and waves to oppose the work; human industry has come forth victorious
from the struggle, and although a thousand difficulties and dangers beset
the labourers, no serious accident to them or their work troubled the joy
of their triumph. Only on one occasion was science at fault. In order to
facilitate the arrival of the stones, which had to be brought from a
distance of several leagues, and cut at Bréhat, the skilful engineer who
had furnished all the plans and superintended their execution wished to
construct a wooden pier for the disembarkation of the stones at the spot
where they were required. Several of the older seamen objected to the plan
as impracticable, but M. Reynaud, who was not familiar with the sea, and
who, moreover, was proud of having stemmed the current of rapid rivers,
trusted to the stability of his massive piles, clamped together with iron
and bronze. But he was soon compelled to admit his mistake. The first
storm sufficed to scatter over the waters the whole of these ponderous and
solid materials like so many pieces of straw. So a crane was attached to
the summit of a rock, to which boats could be moored, and the materials
for building were then drawn up to a railway which had been thrown over
the precipice that separated this natural landing-place from the site of
the tower.
“Now that we have admired the exterior of the lighthouse, follow me into
the interior by the help of these steps, which have been formed by the
insertion of bars of copper into the stone. Let us pause for a moment to
admire the ponderous bronze doors which hermetically seal the entrance,
before we plunge into those vaults which look as if they had been cut out
of the solid rock. We are in the first storey, surrounded by stores of
wood and ropes and workmen’s tools. Above, we perceive cases of zinc,
which, we are told, contain oil to feed the lamps and water for the use of
the men employed in the building. In the third storey is the kitchen, with
its pantry and larder, on a level with the first gallery. We need not
enter the three apartments appropriated to the use of the men, for, beyond
being very simple and clean, there is nothing to record concerning them.
But we have now reached the seventh storey, and we must rest for a few
moments in the little octagonal saloon, set apart for the engineers, when
they come to inspect the condition of the lighthouse. Here, in the midst
of the ocean, more than a hundred feet above the level of the sea, you
will find the comfort and almost the elegance of a Parisian apartment.
“Let us now return to the spiral staircase which has brought us thus far,
and which will carry us at once to the portion of the edifice which is
more particularly destined to fulfil the special purpose for which the
tower is designed. The eighth storey contains vessels of oil, glasses,
revolving lamps, some admirable instruments intended for meteorological
observations, a thermometer, barometer, and chronometer. Here the spiral
staircase terminates in a flattened arch, which supports a slender pillar,
cut into steps, which are the only means of communication with the
watch-tower above, in which the men take it by turns to keep guard every
night. You will be surprised on looking round to perceive that this
apartment is coated with different coloured marbles, which line the walls
and vaulted roof, and even cover the floor. But this luxury, which may
appear to you so much out of place, has been introduced from necessity.
The apparatus for lighting the building enters the room through a circular
aperture in the ceiling, and hence the most extreme cleanliness becomes
necessary, which could alone be obtained by the aid of perfectly polished
surfaces.”
The tenth and last flight of steps brings one beneath the cupola, and to
the machinery by which a light of the first order is maintained.