[38] Stevenson, “Account of the Bell Rock Lighthouse,” p. 180.
During the winter the men were engaged in quarrying and preparing the stones, and collecting divers materials. The stones were laid down in courses in the positions they would occupy in the future lighthouse; they were then carefully numbered and marked, bored or fixed with oaken trenails and stone joggles, after the plan adopted by Smeaton in building the Eddystone lighthouse; and in this state laid aside for trans-shipment to the rock.
The operations of the second season (1808) were commenced at as early a date as the weather permitted. A new tender, the _Sir Joseph Banks_, was provided for the reception of the men when not at work, and as it lay alongside the rock, protected from the winds, the process of landing or embarkation was conducted with very great facility.
The mode in which the different artificers were employed is thus described by Mr. Stevenson[39]:—
“Preparations having been made for a second forge upon the beacon, the smiths commenced their operations both upon the higher and lower platforms, where forges had been erected. They were employed in sharpening the picks and irons for the masons, and in making _bats_, movable cranes, and other apparatus of various descriptions connected with the railways. The landing-master’s crew were occupied in assisting the mill-wrights in laying the railways to land. Sailors, of all descriptions of men, are the most accommodating in the use of their hands. They worked freely with the boring irons, and assisted in all the operations of the railways, acting by turns as boatmen, seamen, and artificers. We had no such character on the Bell Rock as the common labourer. All the operations of this department were cheerfully undertaken by the seamen, who, both on the rock and on shipboard, were the inseparable companions of every work connected with the erection of the Bell Rock Lighthouse. It will naturally be supposed, that about twenty-five masons, occupied with their picks in executing and preparing the foundation of the lighthouse, in the course of a tide of about three hours, would make a considerable impression upon an area even of forty-two feet in diameter. But in proportion as the foundation was deepened, the rock was found to be much more hard and difficult to work, while the baling and pumping of water became much more troublesome. A joiner was kept almost constantly employed in fitting the picks to their handles, which, as well as the points of the irons, were very frequently broken. At eight o’clock the water overflowed the site of the building, and the boats left the rock with all hands for breakfast.”