CHAPTER VI.OPERATIONS OF 1840.
In describing the progress of the works during the season of 1840, I shall speak of the various departments separately, as in the last chapter, beginning with the workyard at Hynish.
Hynish Workyard.During the preceding winter months, the establishment at Hynish was reduced to about fifty persons, of whom twenty-seven were masons employed chiefly in dressing blocks for the Lighthouse, in laying the stone platform in the workyard (on which each course was adjusted previously to its being shipped for the Rock, to prevent the occurrence of mistakes which might not be easily remedied there), and in building some additional barracks, masons’ sheds and a limekiln for the summer of 1840. The quarriers and labourers formed a party of about eighteen, and were engaged in cutting blocks in the Tyree quarries, which, although unfit for the Lighthouse Tower, were very suitable for the completion of the Pier at Hynish; while nine carpenters had full occupation in making moulds for dressing the Lighthouse blocks, preparing oaken treenails to be used in the lower courses of the Lighthouse Tower, and in dressing handles for the masons’ and quarriers’ tools. In the month of April, a reinforcement of thirty-seven masons from Aberdeen arrived at Hynish; and the greater number of them were at once employed in the dressing of stones for the Tower; while a few assisted in building the dressed materials in a temporary manner on the stone platform in the workyard already mentioned. The number of masons in the workyard, during the summer months, varied considerably,according to the state of the works on the Rock, where seldom fewer than thirty men were stationed throughout the whole working season. But the dressing of the stones for the Tower proceeded with considerable vigour; and notwithstanding the inroads necessarily made upon the men’s time, by their being frequently required to assist in the landing of materials from Mull, a work for which few of the Tyree men were fit, from their awkwardness in the management of cranes and all kinds of machinery or tackling, and also by the constant detachment of a considerable number both of men and of tools for the laborious work of dressing the foundation-pit at the Rock, upwards of 20,000 cubic feet of granite had been dressed and fitted on the platform, when I left Hynish in the end of October 1840.
Hynish Pier.During the whole of the summer, the traffic at the pier at Hynish was so great in landing materials from the Mull quarries, and in shipping stones for the Rock, that much inconvenience was felt from want of room. Nearly 4000 tons were shipped and discharged at the quay, independently altogether of the ballasting of each vessel which discharged at the pier, and the receiving, storing, and finally supplying coals to the steamer, which formed no inconsiderable item of the labour. Every exertion was made to extend the pier, so soon as the works at the Rock were closed for the season and the stone trade with Mull had ceased; and by great perseverance on the part of Mr James Scott, the foreman of the workyard, whom I always found ready, night and day, to second and even to anticipate my wishes in regard to the progress of the works, an additional length of 36 feet was added to the berthage of the quay before the winter had set in.
The Rock.The first landing on the Rock, for the purpose of resuming the work in 1840, was on the 30th April, when all things connected with the Barrack were found in nearly the same state in which we had left them seven months before. The red paint with which we had coated it had become nearly white, partly by a covering of sea-salt, and by blanching of the paint itself, but chiefly towardsthe top by the soil of the numerous sea-fowl which had perched on the roof. The timbers, also, bore the signs of being wave-washed, and in the more sheltered parts were tufted with the finer kinds of seaweed; the iron-work was much rusted and entirely divested of paint. The door had been firmly secured with lashings and bolts, and some difficulty was experienced in forcing an entrance into the interior, about the state of which, as our future abode, much curiosity was naturally felt by the men, who were desirous to know how it had weathered a seven months’ exposure to the waves of the Atlantic. It was with no small pleasure, therefore, that, when the door was opened and the windows unbarred and the sunshine admitted to dispel its gloom and chilly damp, we found, that although the water had forced its way through some of the imperfect seams in the window-frames, the interior shewed evident signs of the stability of the fabric, and was in some places so dry, that the greater part of the biscuits which we had left the year before, as a store for shipwrecked seamen who might find their way to the Rock, although some of them were wet and pulpy on the side nearest the outer walls, admitted of being dried, and when a little toasted at the fire, were palatable enough to hungry men, so that, in fact, we consumed the greater part of that stock before we entered on our new supply.
The most important change which had occurred during the winter, was the removal of a mass of rock in the neighbourhood of the foundation-pit, which had been shaken by the effects of the blasting operations of the previous year. That mass, the moving of which shewed that a great weight of water had passed over the Rock, weighed about five tons, and had been detached from its bed during a heavy gale from the N.W., in the month of March, and carried right across the foundation-pit to the Barrack, against one of the beams of which it had rested, and had partially injured the ironcollarsorglandsby which the beam was secured. The stone was broken into small fragments by a party of men, who had been appointed to visit the Rock after heavy gales, and hadlanded on the 27th of March, to see the state of the Barrack. The men, in their anxiety to break down the block, which they feared might injure the Barrack, if thrown against it by the waves, and allured by the smoothness of the sea, most imprudently remained all night, mooring their boat in the landing creek, and trusting to the scanty stock of provisions which they had brought out, with the intention of at once returning to Hynish. The risk involved in such a proceeding, we afterwards had many opportunities of knowing during our stay on the Rock, as we were often forced to make fast all our materials, to prevent their being washed away by the sudden rising of the waves, especially about the time of high-water in spring-tides. The discomforts, however, experienced by the men on that occasion while in the Barrack, without fire, light or bedding, in a cold dark night of spring were such, that several of them did not afterwards much affect the Rock as a residence even in summer.
Owing to the great difficulty of landing on the Rock in the early part of May, few opportunities occurred of preparing the Barrack as a habitation;Life in the Barrack.and it was not until the 14th of that month that we were enabled to take up our quarters in it; and even then we were most uncomfortably lodged, as many of the smaller fittings which are essential to awind-and-water-tighthabitation had not been completed. During the first month we suffered much from the flooding of our apartments with water, at times when heavy sprays lashed the walls of the Barrack with great violence and also during rainy weather; and in northerly gales we had much difficulty in keeping ourselves warm. On one occasion, also, we were fourteen days without communication with the shore or the steamer; and during the greater part of that time we saw nothing but white fields of foam as far as the eye could reach, and heard nothing but the whistling of the wind and the thunder of the waves, which were at times so loud as to make it almost impossible to hear any one speak. For several days, the seas rose so high as to prevent our attempting to go down tothe Rock; and the cold and comfortless nature of our abode reduced all hands to the necessity of seeking warmth in bed, where (rising only to our meals) we generally spent the greater part of the day listening to the howling of the winds and the beating of the waves, which occasionally made the house tremble in a startling manner. Such a scene, with the ruins of the former barrack not 20 yards from us, was calculated only to inspire the most desponding anticipations; and I well remember the undefined sense of dread that flashed across my mind, on being awakened one night by a heavy sea which struck the Barrack, and made my cot or hammock swing inwards from the wall, and was immediately followed by a cry of terror from the men in the apartment above me, most of whom, startled by the sound and tremour, immediately sprang from their berths to the floor, impressed with the idea that the whole fabric had been washed into the sea. The alarm, however, was very short and the solemn pause, which succeeded the cry, was soon followed by words of reassurance and congratulation. Towards the end of the fourteen days I began to grow very uneasy, as our provisions were drawing to a close; and when we were at length justified, by the state of the sea on the rock, in making the signal to those on shore (at the hour fixed for pointing the telescope at Hynish on the Barrack), that a landing could be effected, we had not more than twenty-four hours’ provision on the Rock, so that when the steamer came in sight she was hailed by all hands with the greatest joy!
The construction of the Barrack has already been very fully described, and a glance atPlate V.will be sufficient to give a pretty correct idea of the nature of our singular dwelling. Immediately under the wooden tower 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 the summer, we kept the stock of coals, the tool-chests, the beef and beer casks, and other smaller materials which we could not, even at that season, safely leave on the Rock itself.Next came the kitchen and provision store, a six-sided apartment about 12 feet in diameter and somewhat more than 7 feet high, in which small space, curtailed as it was by the seven beams which passed through it, stood acaboose, capable of cooking for forty men, and various cupboards and lockers, lined with tin, for holding the biscuits, meal, flour, barley and other things needful for the sustenance of the human frame. That apartment, for protection against fire, was coated, partly with tin and partly with sheet-lead, which latter, although not in all respects the most desirable material to come in contact with that element, was found to be the only one which we could in some parts conveniently apply. The next storey was divided into two apartments, whereof one was shared by Mr Thomas Macurich, who superintended the landing of all the materials and Mr Charles Stewart, the foreman of the builders, and the other was allotted to myself. The apartments thus occupied consisted of a twelve-sided narrow space twisted around a centre pyramid, whose bevelled faces formed, as will in part be seen by inspectingPlate V., their sloping walls on one side. The half of that space constituted my apartment, which, I think, would be generally pronounced not over commodious; and when it is added that it contained my bed, desk, chair and table, and a stock of groceries, it will readily be imagined I had little room to spare for myself. So much attention was paid to economy of space, that the recesses of the pyramid formed by the meeting of the beams were boarded over and made into cupboards; while mycot, or framed hammock (which, during the night, rested upon brackets which could be folded close to the wall when not required), was, during the day, hoisted by pullies to the roof of the apartment, so as to leave me as much space to move about in as a prisoner could expect. The cornice of the apartment consisted of a narrow shelf adorned with books, which I found very needful helps to solitary life. The highest apartment was also twelve-sided, surmounted by a pyramidal roof and a small six-sided lantern or ventilator, and was lined round the sides with four tiers of berths, capable of accommodating thirtypeople. The closeness of that room was most intolerable, especially during the heat of fine weather in summer, at which time several of the men preferred taking a nap on the rock, with the clear blue sky for a canopy. The economy of our life on the Rock was strange enough. At half-past three in the morning we were called, and at four the work commenced, continuing till eight, when half-an-hour was given for breakfast: after which it was carried on till two, when another half-hour was given for dinner; and the work was again resumed and continued till seven, eight, and even nine o’clock, when anything urgent was in hand. Supper was then produced and eaten with more leisure and comfort in the cool of the evening. Such protracted exertion produced a continual drowsiness, and almost every one who sat down fell fast asleep. I have myself repeatedly fallen asleep in the middle of breakfast or dinner; and have not unfrequently awakened, pen in hand, with a half-written word on the paper! Yet life on the Skerryvore Rock 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, which wheeled continually over us, especially at our meals, the low moaning of the wind, or the gorgeous brightness of a glassy sea and a cloudless sky, and the solemn stillness of a deep blue vault, studded with stars, or cheered by the splendours of the full moon, were the phases of external things that often arrested our thoughts in a situation where, with all the bustle that sometimes prevailed, there was necessarily so much time for reflection. Those changes, together with the continual succession of hopes and fears connected with the important work in which we were engaged, and the oft-recurring calls for advice or direction, as well as occasional hours devoted to reading and correspondence, and the pleasures of news from home, were more than sufficient to reconcile me to, nay, to make me really enjoy, an uninterrupted residence, on one occasion, of not less than five weeks on that desert Rock.
During the first half of the season 30 men were engaged 14 hoursa day in the preparation ofFoundation-pit.the foundation-pit, which, as already said, was a work of the greatest labour. The Rock, indeed, was in many places so hard as often to make it seem hopeless that tools could make any impression on it. The time employed in the excavation and the number of tools expended on it, were very great, as a pick seldom stood more than three strokes in the harder quartzose veins; but our perseverance was at length amply rewarded by obtaining a foundation so level and so fairly wrought throughout the whole area of a circle 42 feet in diameter, as to present to the view the appearance of a gigantic basin of variegated marble; and so much pleased were the workmen themselves with the result of their protracted toil, that many of them expressed serious regret that the foundation must soon be covered up so, as (we trusted), never to be seen again. In the dressing of the Rock much inconvenience arose from the small splinters which flew out before the tools, sometimes rising to the height of 40 feet, and coming in at the windows of the Barrack; and after several injuries had been sustained, I at length found it necessary to send to Glasgow for fencing masks to protect the men’s faces. In all our work, nothing was more grudged than the occasional loss of half a day inbalingout the water from the foundation-pit after it had been filled by a heavy sea.
Landing of materials on the Rock.Before we had made an actual trial of landing stones on a Rock at the distance of 12 miles from the nearest shore, exposed to the incessant beating of Atlantic waves, there was much room for doubt as to the measure of success to be expected; and, as the time approached, I naturally looked to the attempt with increasing anxiety, as to an experiment in a great measure decisive of the future complexion of our operations. Four small vessels, carrying from 16 to 19 tons, had been built at Leith and Dumbarton, for the purpose of carrying the stones on their decks, so as to admit of their being easily lifted by the crane, and so to avoid the risk which would have been incurred by any attempt to raise stones by a crane from the hold of a vessel moored to a rockin the open sea and moving about with every wave. Had that been attempted, the crane would, on many occasions, have been pulled down before the stone could be cleared from the hold. The vessels were very similar to those which were used for the same purpose at the Bell Rock; and I therefore beg leave to refer the reader to page 509, and to Plate XI. of my Father’s account of that work, for a description of them. Being decked all over, to give room for cargo (for they carried nothing in the hold but empty casks for the purpose of floating them in the event of their sustaining any injury), they were towed between Hynish and the Rock by the steamer, and beingcast offas near the landing-place as possible, were taken by the boats to the creek, and moored with warps to the fenders at the quay.
The first trial of the lighters in landing stones on the Rock was made on the 20th of June, on which occasion both the steamer and the stone craft were decorated with flags; and due honour was done to the occasion of landing the first stone, by firing a salvo shot and drinking success to the works. The landing service throughout the whole progress of the works was one of much difficulty and anxiety and many narrow escapes were made; but it was managed with great prudence, and at the same time with unremitting energy, by Messrs Macurich and Heddle, in their several departments, both ashore and afloat. 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 their 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, also, we were forced, owing to the rush of the sea into the creek, which threatened to lift the vessels on the top of the Rock, to draw out the loaded lighters from the wharf without landing a single stone, after they had been towed through a stormy passage of 13 miles; and one day, during the very best part of the season, so sudden was the bounding of the vessel before the sea, that eight large warps were snappedlike threads as the lighter was carried violently before a crested wave which rolled unexpectedly into the creek, while those who stood on her deck were thrown flat on their faces and imagined that the vessel had been laidhigh and dryon the top of the Rock. During the whole season, however, in the course of landing 800 tons of masonry on the Rock, too often in that dangerous manner, none of the dressed stones received any great damage, nor was any other injury of importance sustained.
The building of the Tower was commenced on the 4th July;Building the first stone.but it was not till the 7th that the ceremony of laying the foundation-stone was performed by His Grace the Duke of Argyll, who, as proprietor of the adjacent Island of Tyree, took a great interest in the success of the works, and on that day visited the Skerryvore with the Duchess of Argyll, the Marquis of Lorne, Lady Emma Campbell, and a party of friends, in the Toward Castle steamer. On that occasion His Grace expressed himself much pleased with the works and kindly left with me a donation of L.10 for the workmen.
The building operations in 1840 were entirely carried on by means of two cranes with moveable jibs, of which one was fixed just beyond the foundation, at the place shewn inPlate III., between the landing quay and the Tower, and was chiefly used in bringing forward the materials; and the other, placed in the centre of the Tower, served for laying the stones, and was raised along with the rise of the building. So perfectly had the stones been dressed in the workyard at Tyree, that no alteration or paring of the beds or joints was required; and such was the facility afforded by the building apparatus, that by working 14 hours, we occasionallyset, through the activity of Mr Charles Stewart, the foreman builder, so many as 85 blocks in a day. The first course of masonry was laid by means of a wooden trainer; but the place of all the subsequent stones was, as already noticed, regulated by the use ofplumb-templets, whose inner faces were arcs of the generating hyperbola. By those means we succeeded insetting, in amost perfect manner, six courses, which carried the building to the height of 8 feet 2 inches, and contained a mass equal to 10,780 cubic feet. That quantity is not greatly less than the whole materials of the Eddystone Lighthouse Tower, which, according to my computations from the drawings ofSmeaton, do not exceed 13,300 cubic feet, and is somewhat more thanone-thirdof the contents of the Bell Rock Tower, which are about 28,500 cubic feet. That frustum was also nearly equal toone-fifthpart of the whole mass of the proposed building, which is about 56,000 cubic feet. Of the six courses, the first three are of Hynish gneiss, and the rest are of granite from the Ross of Mull. The comparative merits of those two materials may be stated as follows:—The Hynish stone is harder, and susceptible of finer workmanship, and perhaps its most perfect blocks are more durable; but it requires much more labour in dressing than the Mull granite, which is more homogeneous in its structure and is not intersected by hard veins, like those which occur in the gneiss of Tyree. There is good reason also for concluding that the Mull stone is sufficiently durable, because it contains but a small proportion of micaceous matter, and in its texture closely resembles some of the blocks of St Oran’s chapel in the neighbouring Island of Iona, which have resisted the action of the weather, it is believed, for more than 600 years and still retain the marks left by the tools of the workmen. I had also carefully compared the density of the Hynish and Mull stones, by weighing blocks of known dimensions, and found that it requires 13·16 cubic feet of the former, and 13·66 cubic feet of the latter to weigh one ton, a difference much less than the appearance of the stone would lead one to expect. A Tower of the dimensions of that at Skerryvore, built entirely of Hynish stone, would have weighed about 4308 tons, while the same mass of Mull stone would weigh 4252 tons, leaving a difference of not more than 156 tons in favour of the Hynish stone.
The mortar employed in the building was composed of equal parts of Aberdda lime and Pozzolano earth, and was thereforeidentical, in its composition, with that used by Smeaton at the Eddystone. Not having been able, after searching the neighbouring islands, to obtain good sand, I found it inexpedient to adopt the proportion of equal parts of lime, sand, and Pozzolano, which were so successfully used at the Bell Rock; but so perfect was the adhesion of the mortar used at the Skerryvore, that in that mass of 800 tons only two small leaks were discernible, which beingrippedor opened with aniron, and allowed to run dry, were afterwards carefully repointed, and have never since shewn the slightest symptoms of leaking.