n, decent, and respectable appearance of the people
collected on the occasion not a little contributed.

By continuing steadily at work during the summer-months, the beacon
was finished in September. It was terminated, at the height of one
hundred feet above the medium level of the sea, with a circular ball
of masonry measuring fifteen feet in circumference.

The completion of this beacon did not, however, prevent the frequent
occurrence of shipwreck upon the island. It had even become proverbial
with some of the inhabitants to observe, 'that if wrecks were to
happen, they might as well be sent to the poor island of Sanday as
anywhere else.' 'On this and the neighbouring islands,' says Mr.
Stevenson, 'the inhabitants have certainly had their share of wrecked
goods; for here the eye is presented with these melancholy remains in
almost every form. For example, although quarries are to be met with
generally in these islands, and the stones are very suitable for
building dikes, yet instances occur of the land being enclosed, even
to a considerable extent, with ship-timbers. The author has actually
seen a park paled round, chiefly with cedar-wood and mahogany from the
wreck of a Honduras built ship; and in one island, after the wreck of
a ship laden with wine, the inhabitants have been known to take claret
to their barley-meal porridge, instead of their usual beverage. On
complaining to one of the pilots of the badness of his boat's sails,
he replied to the author with some degree of pleasantry, "Had it been
His (God's) will that you came na here wi' these lights, we might a'
had better sails to our boats, and more o' other things." It may
further be noticed, that when some of Lord Dundas's farms are to be
let in these islands, a competition takes place for the lease; and it
is understood that a much higher rent is paid than the lands would
otherwise give, were it not for the chance of making considerably by
the agency and advantages attending shipwrecks on the shores of the
respective farms.'

In his Report to the Board in the year 1805, Mr. Stevenson proposed
that the Start Point beacon should be converted into a lighthouse, and
that the north Ronaldsay light should be discontinued, and its tower
converted into a beacon, as wrecks were found to happen comparatively
seldom upon that island, while hardly a year passed without instances
of this kind in the Island of Sanday; for owing to the projecting
points of this strang