• In the kitchen, there is a kind of grate or open fire-place of cast-iron, with a smoke tube of the same metal which passes through the several apart ments to the light-room, and heats them in its pas sage upwards. This grate and chimney merely touch the building, without being included or built into the walls, which, by this means, are neither weakened, nor liable to be injured by it. The tim ber of the doors, and the panelled partitioning of the rooms from the stairs, and also of the bed frames and furniture in general, is of wainscot.
The light-room and its apparatus was entirely framed and prepared at Edinburgh. It is of an octa gonal figure, measuring 12 feet across, and 15 feet in height, formed with cast-iron sashes, or window frames glazed with large plates of polished glass, measuring about 2 feet 6 inches by 2 feet 3 inches, each plate being of the thickness of a quarter of an inch. The light-room is covered with a dome roof of copper, terminating in a large gilded ball, with a vent-hole in the top.
The light of the Bell Rock is very powerful, and 3 is readily seen at the distance of six or seven leagues, when the atmosphere is clear. The light is from oil, with Argand burners placed in the focus of silver plated reflectors, measuring 24 inches over the lips ; the silvered surface or face being hollowed or wrought to, the parabolic curve. That the Bell Rock light may be easily distinguished from all other lights upon the coast, the reflectors are ranged upon a frame with four faces or sides, which, by a train of machinery, is made to revolve upon a perpendicular axis once in six minutes. Between the observer and the reflectors, on two opposite sides of the re volving frame, shades of red glass are interposed, in such a manner, that, during each entire revolution of the reflectors, two appearances, distinctly differing -from each other, are produced ; one is the common bright light familiar to every one, but, on the other, or shaded sides, the rays are tinged of a red colour. These red and bright lights, in the coarse of each revolution, alternate with intervals of darkness, which, in a very beautiful and simple, manner, characterize this light.
As a farther warning to the mariner, in foggy weather, two large bells, weighing about 12 cwt. are tolled day and night by the same train of machinery which moves the lights. As these bells, in moderate weather, may be heard considerably beyond the li mits of the Rock, vessels, by this means, get warn ing to put about, and are thereby prevented from running upon the Rock in thick and hazy weather ; a disaster to which ships might otherwise be liable, notwithstanding the erection of the light-house.
Prior to, or about the time of the erection of thel Bell Rock light-house, it was by no means mon to meet with various doubts, regarding the practicability of the works, expressed in such terms as the following " That, even if it were practicable to erect a light-house, upon such a sunken rock, no one would be found hardy enough to live in an abode so dread and dreary, and that it would fall to the lot of the projectors themselves to possess it for the first winter." But the reverse of all this took place; for the confidence of the public had been con firmed by the stability as well of the wooden-beacon house, as of the building itself, which, in its pro gressive rise, withstood the storms of two succes sive winters, in an unfinished state ; so that, by the time the house was ready for its inhabitants, the applications for the place of light-keepers were much more numerous than the situations ; and applicants on both sides of the Tweed were disappointed in their wishes.
The establishment of light-keepers at the Bell Rock, consists of a principal light-keeper, who has at the rate of 60 guineas per annum, paid quarteily; a principal assistant, who has 55 guineas ; and two other assistants at 50 guineas each ; besides a suit of uniform clothes, in common with the other light keepers of the Northern Light-houses, every three years. While at the rock, these 'men get a stated allowance of bread, beef, butter, oat-meal, pot-bar ley, and vegetables, besides sm;(11 beer, and an al lowance of fourpence per day each for the purchase of tea and other necessaries. At Arbroath, the most contiguous town on the opposite coast, a suite of buildings has been erected, where each light.