cs that the raising of ponderous stones to a great height is
not an easy matter. As long as the lighthouse was low, cranes were
easily raised on the rock, but when it became too high for the cranes
to reach their heads up to the top of the tower, what was to be done?
Block-tackles could not be fastened to the skies! Scaffolding in such
a situation would not have survived a moderate gale.

In these circumstances Mr. Stevenson constructed a _balance_ crane,
which was fixed in the centre of the tower, and so arranged that it
could be raised along with the rising works. This crane resembled a
cross in form. At one arm was hung a movable weight, which could be
run out to its extremity, or fixed at any part of it. The other arm
was the one by means of which the stones were hoisted. When a stone
had to be raised; its weight was ascertained, and the movable weight
was so fixed as _exactly_ to counterbalance it. By this simple
contrivance all the cumbrous and troublesome machinery of long guys
and bracing-chains extending from the crane to the rock below were
avoided.

Well, Bonnyman was attending to the working of the crane, and
directing the lowering of a stone into its place, when he
inadvertently laid his left hand on a part of the machinery where it
was brought into contact with the chain, which passed over his
forefinger, and cut it so nearly off that it was left hanging by a
mere shred of skin. The poor man was at once sent off in a fast
rowing boat to Arbroath, where the finger was removed and properly
dressed.[1]

[Footnote 1: It is right to state that this man afterwards obtained a
lightkeeper's situation from the Board of Commissioners of Northern
Lights, who seem to hare taken a kindly interest in all their
servants, especially those of them who had suffered in the service.]

A much more serious accident occurred at another time, however, which
resulted in the death of one of the seamen belonging to the
_Smeaton_.

It happened thus. The _Smeaton_ had been sent from Arbroath with a
cargo of stones one morning, and reached the rock about half-past six
o'clock A.M. The mate and one of the men, James Scott, a youth of
eighteen years of age, got into the sloop's boat to make fast the
hawser to the floating buoy of her moorings.

The tides at the time were very strong, and the mooring-chain when
sweeping the ground had caught hold of a rock or piece of wreck, by
which the chain was so shortened, that when the tide