The minute details given in my account of the destruction of the first Barrack, have entirely superseded the need for any particular description of the fitting up of the second Barrack on the Rock; and I shall therefore confine myself to a brief notice of the work in the chronological order in which it occurred. Fitting up of the Second Barrack on the Rock. On the 1st of July, after the level floor for the foundation of the Tower had been roughly cleared, and all risk of injury from the firing of mines was past, the boring of holes for the fixtures of the second Barrack was begun; and so great were our exertions, that in the short period of fourteen days, the pyramidal frame-work on which the Barrack-house was to stand (see [Plate V.]), consisting of 13 beams, of about 50 feet in length, with all their braces, ties and stancheons, and the malleable iron cap which secured their union at the top, was firmly fixed on the Rock. After the pyramid was completed, the Barrack-house (which had previously been removed from North Bay, where, as already noticed, it had served as a temporary abode for the men who opened the quarries there), was transported, piece-meal, from Hynish to the Rock as required; for it was not considered prudent, after the experience of last year, to trust, even in the finest part of the season, a great quantity of timber to lashings on the Rock. The fitting-up of the Barrack-house was completed on the 3d September and occupied only eleven days; so that the whole work extended to only twenty-five days, a remarkably short time for such a work, in such a situation. That despatch, indeed, was only obtained by working (as we did both during the excavation of the foundation and the erection of the Barrack), at all times when the weather would permit, from four o’clock in the morning till eight, and even nine in the evening, with an interval of only half-an-hour for breakfast and the same for dinner. The erection of the Barrack was a work of great difficulty and anxiety; for, as every thing depended on the exact union of all its parts, the slightest error in any dimension would have stopped the work until it could be remedied, a delay which, in such a situation, would, at certain stages of its progress, have proved fatal to the whole structure. Sudden death of George Middlemiss. I cannot, therefore, omit this opportunity of paying a tribute, in passing, to the memory of the late Mr George Middlemiss, the foreman of the carpenters who fitted up the Barrack, whose zeal for the completion of the work was very conspicuous. Poor Middlemiss died very suddenly at Hynish, about a fortnight after the completion of his labours on the Rock. He had received some instructions from me, so late as 11 o’clock, on the night of the 20th September; and when one of the men went to call him next morning at 6 o’clock, he was found dead, and in such a state as led Mr Moxey, the surgeon attached to the works, after a careful examination, to conclude, that he had died of paralysis of the heart, about three hours before he was found, or not more than four hours after I had seen him, to all appearance, in perfect health!
Wharf and Landing-place on the Rock. No inconsiderable part of the labour of this season was devoted to the clearing of the landing-place, which was formed in a natural creek (see [Plate III.]) and in excavating the rocks in front of the line of wharf, so as to admit the vessels carrying the building materials to come alongside of it. That work could only be done at certain times of tide and during very fine weather, and was, therefore, tedious as well as hazardous. After two entire days spent in cutting with a sickle, mounted on a long pole, the thick cover of gigantic sea-weed, which hid the true form of the Rock from view, we were able to mark out the line of the wharf; and after all the mines were bored and charged and the tide had risen, and every one had retired from the spot, the whole were fired at the same instant, by means of the galvanic battery, to the great amazement and even terror of some of the native boatmen, who were obviously much puzzled to trace the mysterious links which connected the drawing of a string at the distance of about 100 yards, with a low murmur, like distant thunder, and a sudden commotion of the waters in the landing-place, which boiled up, and then belched forth a dense cloud of smoke; nor was their surprise lessened, when they saw that it had been followed by a large rent in the rock; for so effectually had the simultaneous firing of the mines done its work, that a flat face for a quay had been cleared in a moment, and little remained to be done, to give the appearance of a regular wharf and to fit it for the approach of a stone lighter, except attaching wooden fenders and a trap ladder.
Ring-bolts, Water-Tanks, and Railways. A good deal of time was also spent in fixing a great many ring-bolts on various parts of the Rock and its outlyers, for the use of the shipping, which we expected to carry stones to the Rock the next season and in clearing a line for a permanent iron railway, about 50 yards long, from the landing wharf to the Tower, the position of which is shewn in [Plate III.] The railway was used for the conveyance of materials from the stone-lighters to the building, and is now the highway for all the stores which pass from the wharf to the Tower. Means were also taken for laying down two cast-iron water-tanks on the Rock in tolerably sheltered positions, as shewn in [Plate III.] One of those tanks was completed and filled with water, but the sole-plate only of the other was fixed, as unfortunately one of the plates dropped from the vessel’s side into the water, while the seamen were lowering it into one of the boats, a loss which prevented the second tank from being finished till the next year. Those tanks, together, held about 900 gallons, and contained our chief supply of water during the whole subsequent progress of the works, when there were often about fifty men on the Rock.
Incidents of the Season. I shall conclude this Chapter, by noticing a few incidents which occurred during the season of 1839, serving, in some degree to throw light upon the peculiar difficulties we had to encounter, or tending to shew the importance of the work in which the Commissioners had engaged.
Effects of a gale from the S.W. On the 9th of August a strong gale suddenly sprang up from the S.W., which, while it lasted, caused us much alarm and anxiety at Hynish, whither we had been driven from our station at the Rock to seek shelter at the commencement of the storm. Several small pieces of timber, which we had left on the Rock when we were forced to leave it, came ashore in Balaphuil Bay; and it was generally reported in the Island that the Barrack had, for the second time, been destroyed. That report I did not credit, as I had great confidence in the fixtures which attached it to the Rock; but my anxiety to ascertain the true state of the case, led me to examine the south-eastern shore of Tyree, when all that could be discovered was a few pieces of loose timber, and one of the smith’s cooling tubs, which had been washed from the Rock. Next day, however, the smith’s bellows came ashore in the same Bay, and so little injured, that we had them repaired and put in use again on the Rock. On the 12th of August, when the weather permitted us to return to our station at the Skerryvore, we found all the timbers which had been lashed down with chains to the Rock scattered in every direction around the beams of the Barrack, the smith’s forge overturned, the bellows of course gone; one of the cranes also which had been used for the removal of the excavated materials had been swept away, and not a vestige of it left, except a small piece of one of the wooden stays, which the force of the waves had broken. But that which most of all surprised us, and gave us the greatest concern, as an alarming proof of the force of the sea and a source of great inconvenience and hazard during the rest of the season, was the disappearance of our moorings, which had been lost by the foundering of the cask buoy in the heavy surf which the gale had raised. During all the rest of our stay at the Rock that season, we were forced to ride at anchor in foul rocky ground of the worst and most irregular description, over which the vessel frequently drifted to a considerable distance, occasioning us no small fear for our safety. That was the second set of moorings which had disappeared at Skerryvore; and a stronger proof of the very great power of the western swell can hardly be imagined, as nothing of the kind had happened during the whole time the Bell Rock works were in progress. That circumstance also convinced us of the necessity of adopting vessels of small burden for landing the materials. So great, indeed, was the difficulty of hanging even the boats at the Rock, that on two occasions (on the nights of the 4th May and 12th July) we had both the boats half filled by the sea, and nine or ten men thrown out on the Rock by the kanting of one of the boats at the recoil of the wave. The landing department was indeed, throughout the whole season, attended with great difficulty, and was to me a source of constant anxiety; for, in the daily transport to and from the vessel and the Rock of 30 men, unaccustomed to boating, during a period of four months, it was more than could have been expected that we should have been preserved from the loss of either life or limb. On the night of the 3d September, when we left our anchorage at the Skerryvore for the season, every heart was full of rejoicing, and many cordial expressions of gratitude to our Almighty Protector were uttered in deep whispers by the more seriously disposed men, whose number bore a goodly proportion to our whole band. I cannot omit saying, in this place, that both Mr Macurich, who acted as landing-master on the Rock, and the late Mr Heddle, the master of the steam-tender, conducted the boating department in a most masterly style.
As an aggravation of our difficulties, we were occasionally much annoyed by the unprincipled and cowardly conduct of a few of the seamen, who, despite the contempt of their comrades, fearing or pretending to fear the risk of lying all night so near the face of the Rock, spared no pains to spread alarm, and made several attempts, Mutiny of the Crew. by threatening desertion, to extort a rise of wages. They even spoke of leaving the vessel at the Rock, which they could easily have done by some of the native boats which called in passing to see the progress of the works; and Mr Heddle, the master of the steamer, was forced to dismiss the mutineers on the first occasion when the vessel was driven for shelter to the land, and to rely during the rest of the season on the native boatmen to supply their place. That firm conduct had, for some time afterwards, the desired effect on those who remained; but the spirit of disaffection having spread pretty widely, we had subsequently several other instances of sudden desertion from the service.
In the course of my residence for four months on board the tender moored off the Rock, I had opportunities of witnessing many proofs of the great necessity which existed for a Light on the Skerryvore; and if I had ever entertained any doubt as to the beneficial effects of such an establishment, the experience of the season of 1839 must have entirely removed it. Near approach of Vessels to the Rock, and other circumstances shewing the importance of a Light on the Skerryvore. It often happened that for several days successively, not fewer than five or six vessels of large size, both outward and homeward bound, were visible at distances varying from 3 to 6 miles from the Rock; and much anxiety was often felt by us for the safety of those vessels, several of which approached so near the outlying rocks as to keep us for some time in the most painful suspense. On two occasions, more especially, I was about to direct the steam to be raised, in order that the Skerryvore tender might be sent to warn the masters of vessels of their danger, or if too late for that, to afford them assistance in case of accident. On the 29th of May a large schooner, and on the 13th of June a large brig ran right down upon the western outlyers, called Fresnel’s Rocks (which were covered at the time), and just put about in time to avoid striking; and on the 12th June, a fine foreign barque (apparently a Prussian) passed so close to Bo-Rhua as to leave us for a short time in doubt whether or not she had struck on it. On the 21st of June, also, a large brig came very near the rocks which lie off Tyree, at the base of Ben-Hynish, in trying to avoid Boinshley Rock, which lies about 5 miles to the N.W. of the Skerryvore. Those circumstances, together with the list of shipwrecks already given at page 23, afford strong proofs that the Skerryvore Rock occupies a most fatal position in a great fairway much frequented by large vessels bound to or from ports in the Irish Sea and in the Clyde.
There cannot be a doubt that many vessels have been wrecked on the Skerryvore and its numerous outlyers, being borne down upon the reef by the strong tide which runs at the rate of between four and five miles an hour at the height of spring tides; and the natives of Tyree have many stories about chains and anchors and hidden treasures, with which their fancy has filled every nook of the Rocks. To what extent those stories, which are often most circumstantially told, may be true, it is not easy to determine; but in the end of July 1839, we succeeded, under the guidance of a native boatman, in raising from a creek in one of the detached shelves to the south-west of the main Rock, an anchor worn by the action of the sea to a mere skeleton, a circumstance which so far corroborates the truth of their traditions.
CHAPTER VI.
OPERATIONS OF 1840.
In describing the progress of the works during the season of 1840, I shall speak of the various departments separately, as in the last chapter, beginning with the workyard at Hynish.