PREFACE.
I am unwilling to dismiss the following pages from my hands without saying a few words in extenuation of the defects which they contain. My chief plea in defence is, that the preparation of thisAccount of the Skerryvore Lighthouse, and theNotes on the Illumination of Lighthouseswhich follow it, was not chosen or assumed by me, but was a task imposed by the express desire of the Lighthouse Board, to whose enlightened and liberal views the Mariner owes the erection of the Lighthouse itself. My labours were also continually interrupted by the urgent calls of my official duties; and, on several occasions, I was forced to dismiss unfinished chapters from my mind for a period of several months—circumstances which, I hope, will in some measure account for the desultory character of the performance, the disproportion of some of its parts, and more especially for repetitions and perhaps omissions which would otherwise have been quite unpardonable.
Having said thus much by way of apology for this Volume, I must acknowledge my many and great obligations to my Father who preceded me as Engineer to the Board of Northern Lighthouses, and of whose experience, as the Architect of no fewer than twenty-five Lighthouses, including that of the Bell Rock, I hadthe full benefit during the erection of the Skerryvore Lighthouse. To the generosity of my esteemed friend,M. Leonor Fresnel, I owe all that I know of the Dioptric System of Illumination, invented by his late illustrious Brother; but this general acknowledgment will not supersede the necessity of frequent repetitions of my obligations to him, as occasion offers, in the course of these pages. I have also derived much assistance, as a careful reader will easily trace, from the valuable little work ofM. Peclet, entitledTraité de l’Eclairage. There are, besides, many other obligations, which I cannot attempt to acknowledge individually, but which those, who kindly conferred them, well know how much I value.
In theAccount of the Skerryvore Lighthouse, which forms the first part of this Volume, there is an important omission; and, in this short prefatory notice, I gladly embrace the only opportunity, which now remains, of supplying the defect. Although, in the course of the Narrative, I have occasionally noticed some special deliverances from danger, I have altogether neglected to record the remarkable fact, that, amidst our almost daily perils, during six seasons on the Skerryvore Rock, there was no loss of either life or limb amongst us. Those who best know the nature of the service in which we were engaged,—the daily jeopardy connected with landing weighty materials in a heavy surf and transporting the workmen in boats through a boisterous sea, the risks to so many men, involved in mining the foundations of the Tower in a space so limited, and above all, the destruction, in a single night by the violence of the waves, of our temporary barrack on the Rock,which had cost the toils of a whole season, will not wonder that I am anxious to express, what I know to have been a general feeling amongst those engaged in the work—that of heartfelt thankfulness toAlmighty Godfor merciful preservation in danger, and for the final success which terminated our arduous and protracted labours.
Edinburgh,March 25, 1848.