rather interesting scene," wrote
the commander. "There were parties of carpenters building the derrick,
making, carrying to the selected situations, and placing the securities
for supporting and working it. Riggers were preparing the gear for it,
sawyers cutting wood for various purposes, rope-makers making lashing
and seizing stuff from the pieces of cable crept[2] up from the bottom,
and two sets of blacksmiths at their forges; those of the _Warspite_
making hoops, bolts, and nails, from various articles which had been
crept up; and those of the _Lightning_ reducing the large diving bell
and constructing a smaller one; five gangs of excavators leveling
platforms on the heights above the cove, cutting roads to lead to them,
and fixing bolts in numerous parts of the faces of the cliffs; some
were employed in felling trees and cutting grass for the huts while
others were building and thatching them; water carriers were passing to
and from the pool with breakers of water; and the officers were
attending to the different parties assigned to them for their immediate
guidance."

When ready to be placed in position, this derrick, built of odds and
ends, was an enormous spar one hundred and fifty-eight feet long. To
support it over the water, elaborate devices had to be rigged from the
cliff overhead, and the whole story of this achievement, as related by
Captain Dickinson, reads like such a masterful, almost titanic battle
against odds that it seems worth while quoting at some length:

"We had by this time taken off thirteen feet of the peak of the
northeast cliff, and thereby made a platform of eighty feet by sixty.
On this was placed the _Lightning's_ capstan and four crabs[3] formed
of the heels of the _Thetis's_ topmasts, the _Lightning's_ bower and
stream anchors, and the store anchor, to which was shackled the chain
splicing-tails and several lengths of the _Thetis's_ chain stream cable
which we had recovered, extending several fathoms over the cliff to
attach the standing parts of the topping-lifts and guy-topping-lifts
to, and preserve them from chafing against the rocks. There were also
eight large bollards[4] placed in proper positions for other
securities. Four other platforms, each large enough for working a
crab, were made at appropriate parts for using the guys and guy-topping
lifts. The roads and paths had been cut, extending from our encampment
to those platforms, and from the one to the other of them