oating 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 fled. It was humorously observed
of this vessel that she was in danger of making a round turn and
appearing with her keel uppermost; and that she would even turn a
halfpenny if laid upon deck." By two o'clock on the morning of the 15th
July this purgatorial vessel was moored by the Bell Rock.

A sloop of forty tons had been in the meantime built at Leith, and named
the _Smeaton_: by the 7th of August my grandfather set sail in her--

"carrying with him Mr. Peter Logan, foreman builder, and five
artificers selected from their having been somewhat accustomed to the
sea, the writer being aware of the distressing trial which the
floating light would necessarily inflict upon landsmen from her
rolling motion. Here he remained till the 10th, and, as the weather
was favourable, a landing was effected daily, when the workmen were
employed in cutting the large seaweed from the sites of the
lighthouse and beacon, which were respectively traced with pickaxes
upon the rock. In the meantime the crew of the _Smeaton_ was employed
in laying down the several sets of moorings within about half a mile
of the rock for the convenience of vessels. The artificers, having,
fortunately, experienced moderate weather, returned to the workyard
of Arbroath with a good report of their treatment afloat; when their
comrades ashore began to feel some anxiety to see a place of which
they had heard so much, and to change the constant operations with
the iron and mallet in the process of hewing for an occasional tide's
work on the rock, which they figured to themselves as a state of
comparative ease and comfort."

I am now for many pages to let my grandfather speak for himself, and
tell in his own words the story of his capital achievement. The tall
quarto of 533 pages from which the following narrative has been dug out
is practically unknown to the general reader, yet good judges have
perceived its merit, and it has been named (with flattering wit) "The
Romance of Stone and Lime" and "The Robinson Crusoe of Civil
Engineering." The tower was but four years in the building; it took
Robert