BELL ROCK LIGHT-HOUSE. The accom panying Plate (XXXIII.) exhibits a perspective view of this important national edifice (which has not improperly been termed the Scottish Pharos), as it is seen after a gale at north-east. In describing it we shall first notice the position of the rock, and Circumstances connected with it, and then describe the progressive advancement and finishing of the build The Inch Cape, or Bell Rock, is situate on the north-eastern coast of Great Britain, about 12 miles in a south-western direction from the town of Ar broath, in the county of Forfar, and about 30 miles in a north-eastern direction from St AO's. Head, in the county of Berwick ; and, as may. be seen from the charts of that coast, it lies in the direct track of the Firth of Tay, and of a great proportion of the ship ping of the Firth of Forth which embraces the exten sive local trade of the populous counties of Fife, Clack mannan, Stirling, Linlithgow, Edinburgh, and Had dington ; and which being an admiral's station, is now the rendezvous of the North Sea fleet. This estuary is, besides, the principal inlet upon the eastern coast of Britain, in which the shipping of the German Ocean and North Sea take refuge, when overtaken by easterly storms. When the tides are neap, or at the quadra tures of the moon, the Bell Rock is scarcely uncover ed at low water ; but, in spring tides, when the ebbs are greatest., that part of the rock which is exposed to view at low water measures about 427 feet in length, by 230 feet in breadth; and, in this low state of the tides, its average perpendicular height above the surface of the sea may be stated at about four feet. Beyond the space included in these measurements, at very low tides, there is a reef on which the larger kinds of fuci appear floating at the surface of the water. This reef extends about 1000 feet, in a south-western direction from the higher part of the . rock just described, on which the light-house is erected. The whole rock is composed of sandstone of a red colour, with some spots of a whitish colour. It strongly resembles the rocks forming the promon tory on the Forfarshire coast, called the Red Head, and those also of the opposite shores of Haddington and Berwick shires, near Dunglass. The atone is hard, of a fine grain, and contains minute specks of inks. Its surface is rugged, with holes which, at ebb-tide, form small pools of water. Such parts of
the rock as appear only in the lowest tides, are thickly coated with fuci ; the larger specimens are Fucus digitatus, great tangle, and Focus esculentus, or badderlock, a sea-weed which sometimes attains here the length of 18 or 20 feet. Those parts most frequently left by the tide are covered with small shell-fish, such as the common barnacle, the limpet, the whelk, and. a few common muscles; and some very large seals rest, upon its extremities at low wa ter of spring-tides. At high water, the red ware cod is caught over the rock ; and at a distance from " it, as the water deepens, the common cod, haddock, whiting, skate, holibut, and other fishes common in these seas, are very numerous.
Such being the position and nature of the Bell Rock, lying in the direct track of a numerous class' of shipping, and appearing only a few feet in height above the water, and that only at the ebbs of spring tides, being at high-water wholly covered to the depth of from 10 to 12 feet ; the want of some dis tinguishing mark that might point out its place was long felt by the mariner, and of the utility and ne cessity of this, every returning winter gave the pub lic fresh proofs. But it required a great extent of commerce to afford the probability of raising an adequate revenue, by a small duty or tonnage upon vessels passing it, to meet the risk and enpence of such a work, as the erection of a habitable house about 12 miles distant from the nearest land, and on a rock from 10 to 12 feet wholly under water at spring-tides. We have read of the wonderful extent of the Pharos of Alexandria,.and are acquainted with the Tower of Corduan,, erected upon a small island at the entrance of the Garonne, on the coast of France, and know, more particularly, the history and structure of the Eddystone light-house, built upon a small rock lying 12 miles off the coast of Cornwall. The public is in possession of Mr Smeaton's perspi cuous and valuable account of that work ; but it is to be observed, that, in the erection of a light-house upon the Bell Rock, independently of its distance from the main-land, a serious difficulty must here have presented itself, arising from the greater depth of water at which it was necessary to carry on the operations, than in the case of any former building of this kind.