of the tender. These also
brought with them two baskets full of fish, which they had caught at
high-water from the beacon, reporting, at the same time, to their
comrades, that the fish were swimming in such numbers over the rock at
high-water that it was completely hid from their sight, and nothing seen
but the movement of thousands of fish. They were almost exclusively of
the species called the podlie, or young coal-fish. This discovery, made
for the first time to-day by the workmen, was considered fortunate, as
an additional circumstance likely to produce an inclination among the
artificers to take up their residence in the beacon, when it came to be
fitted up as a barrack.

Tuesday, 7th June.

At three o'clock in the morning the ship's bell was rung as the signal
for landing at the rock. When the landing was to be made before
breakfast, it was customary to give each of the artificers and seamen a
dram and a biscuit, and coffee was prepared by the steward for the
cabins. Exactly at four o'clock the whole party landed from three boats,
including one of those belonging to the floating light, with a part of
that ship's crew, which always attended the works in moderate weather.
The landing-master's boat, called the _Seaman_, but more commonly called
the _Lifeboat_, took the lead. The next boat, called the _Mason_, was
generally steered by the writer; while the floating light's boat,
_Pharos_, was under the management of the boatswain of that ship.

Having now so considerable a party of workmen and sailors on the rock,
it may be proper here to notice how their labours were directed.
Preparations having been made last month for the erection of a second
forge upon the beacon, the smiths commenced their operations both upon
the lower and higher platforms. They were employed in sharpening the
picks and irons for the masons, and making bats and other apparatus of
various descriptions connected with the fitting of the railways. The
landing-master's crew were occupied in assisting the millwrights in
laying the railways to hand. Sailors, of all other descriptions of men,
are the most accommodating in the use of their hands. They worked freely
with the boring-irons, and assisted in all the operations of the
railways, acting by turns as boatmen, seamen, and artificers. We had no
such character on the Bell Rock as the common labourer. All the
operations of this department were cheerfully undertaken by the seamen,
who, both on th