In such a situation as the Skerryvore, new wants were discovered every day; and each summer brought its round of smaller works, which the experience of the preceding winter had suggested. The Barrack was found very useful as a place of residence for the workmen, who were engaged in such needful works; and it was not until the summer of 1846, Removal of the Barrack from the Rock. that it was taken to pieces and removed from the Rock, after having kept its place for six years. Its removal, however, was then thought advisable, as some of its fixtures, by the continual action of the weather, had become very loose and precarious; and, although a very small outlay would have made it almost as stable as at first, it was considered inexpedient to attempt to perpetuate a structure confessedly temporary in its nature, and the sudden destruction of which by the waves, seemed to involve some risk of injury to the Tower itself.
Expense. The expense of erecting the Skerryvore Lighthouse, including the opening of quarries and forming wharfs at the quarries in Mull and also the Harbour in Tyree, was, as appears from the [Account] in the Appendix, L.86,977 : 17 : 7.
In the course of the Summer of 1844, a marble tablet, bearing an inscription in letters of gold, was, by order of the Commissioners, placed over one of the windows in the Visiting Officers’ Room. With a [representation] of the Tablet and the Inscription, which, after acknowledging the hand of Almighty God in the success which attended the work, briefly sets forth the beneficent purposes for which the Lighthouse was erected and records the laying of the foundation-stone by his Grace the Duke of Argyll, I willingly close this most defective narrative of the work.
Engraved by W. & A.K. Johnston
IN SALUTEM OMNIUM
NORTHERN LIGHTHOUSES
A. D. O. M.
AUCTORITATE . ET . CONCILIIS
PHARORUM . SCOTIAE . COLLEGII
HAEC . STRUCTA . FUIT . PHAROS
CUJUS . DIRECTI . FLAMMA
NAUTAE
INFAMIBUS . HIS . SCOPULIS . ADHUC . MERITO . DETERRITI
OPTATUM . PORTUM . RECTIUS . ADVENIRENT.
JOANNES . DUX . DE . ARGYLL
INSULARUM . ADJACENTIUM . DOMINUS
LAPIDEM . AUSPICALEM . RITE . STATUIT
DIE . IV . MENSIS . JULII . ANNO . IV . VICT. REG.
M . D . C . C . C . X . L .
OPERUM . MAGISTRO . ALANO . STEVENSON . L.L.B.
PART SECOND.
NOTES
ON THE
ILLUMINATION OF LIGHTHOUSES.