Monday 30th.
Fish very abundant at the rock.
The weather to-day was moderate, and there was much less breach in the sea than there had been since the commencement of the work this season. The wind kept steadily in the south-west, and the barometer had changed its range from 29.40 to 29.90, and the thermometer from about 40° to 45°. The abundance of fish caught near the Rock was another proof of the more favourable state of the weather; for the fish never failed to come upon the anchorage-ground during good weather, while they as regularly disappeared on a change for the worse.
The Tender’s bell rung this morning, as the signal for going to the Rock, at 9 o’clock; and at half-past 9, the water having partially left the foundation-pit, the work commenced, and continued two and three-fourth hours, or till a quarter from 1 o’clock P. M., when the tide again overflowed the whole site of the building. The masons and seamen returned with the boats on board the Tender, but the mill-wrights and joiners, who had come off with the Smeaton to fit up the railways, and such of the masons as were apt to be sick, remained with the smiths on the Beacon throughout the day.
General usefulness of Sailors as men of all works.
The number of workmen at the Rock was now increased to twenty-eight, including six sailors from the landing-master’s crew, who were constantly employed in baling water, and keeping the foundation clear of the chips, struck off by the pick. They also conveyed the irons to the forge, by hoisting them up to the Beacon by a whip-tackle. The seamen were of the greatest service in many of the operations, for Jack is a man of all trades; but as they had their boats to attend, and were always at the landing-master’s call, they were not taken into account in the enumeration of artificers.
Mortar Gallery fitted up.
Mr Francis Watt commenced, at this tide, with five joiners, to fit up a temporary platform upon the Beacon, about twenty-five feet above the highest part of the Rock. This platform was to be used as the site of the smith’s forge, after the Beacon should be fitted up as a barrack; and here also the mortar was to be mixed and prepared for the building, and it was accordingly termed the Mortar Gallery. This platform was supported with joisting, well framed, and properly fixed to the principal beams; but the flooring or boarding, though two inches in thickness, was only slightly nailed to the joisting, so that when the sea rose, and struck it in bad weather, it might lift, without endangering the general frame of the fabric. At the end of the working season this floor was lifted, and the joisting only left during the winter months.
Smeaton is ballasted at the Bell Rock.