BELL ROCK or INCHCAPE ROCK, a sandstone reef in the North Sea, 12m. S.E. of Arbroath, Angus Forfarshire, Scotland. It measures 2,000f t. in length, is under water at high tide, but at low tide is exposed for a few feet, the sea for a dis tance of Iooyds. around being then only three fathoms deep. Lying in the fairway of vessels making or leaving the Tay and Forth, besides ports farther north, it was a constant menace. In the great gale of 1799 seventy sail were wrecked off the reef, and next year Robert Stevenson modelled a tower and reported that its erection was feasible, but parliamentary powers were only ob tained in i8o6 and operations began August 1807. Though John Rennie had meanwhile been associated with Stevenson as con sulting engineer, the design and details are wholly Stevenson's work. The tower is 8oft. high; its diameter at the base is 42ft., decreasing to 15ft. at the top. It is solid for Soft. at which height the doorway is placed. A bust of Stevenson by Samuel Joseph (d. 185o) was placed in the tower. According to tradition an abbot of Aberbrothock (Arbroath) had ordered a bell—whence the name of the rock—to be fastened to the reef so as to respond to movements of the waves. This was destroyed by a pirate, whose ship was afterwards wrecked at this very spot, the rover and his men being drowned. Southey made the incident the sub ject of his ballad of "The Inchcape Rock."