Application for additional light-houses.
In the year 1793, the prosperous state of funds induced and enabled the Commissioners to attend to the applications of mariners for additional light-houses on the coast. In particular a letter, to be afterwards more fully noticed, was addressed to the Light-house Board by Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane, then commanding his Majesty’s ship Hind upon the Leith station, setting forth the great benefit that would accrue to shipping, from the erection of a light-house upon the Bell Rock. Representations were likewise made at this time by the merchants of Liverpool, regarding the propriety of erecting a light-house upon the Skerries, situated in the middle of the Pentland Firth , which separates the Orkney Islands from the Mainland of Caithness. The object of a light here, was to open this Firth as a passage to shipping in general, and to enable the mariner to avoid a circuitous and dangerous voyage to the northward of the Orkney Islands.
State of the Light-house funds.
At this period, however, the Commissioners could not venture to undertake a work of such magnitude and difficulty, as the erection of a light-house upon the Bell Rock. The amount of the light-house duties at first was extremely limited; and though in a progressive state, yet, for 1789, as before stated, they only amounted to L. 249:14:6. For 1790, the sum was L. 1477:5:1; for 1791, it was L. 2736:9:2; for 1792, it rose to L. 3160:18:1. But in the year 1793, of which we are now treating, the duties rather declined, and they only netted L. 2868, 3s. 5d. The Commissioners were nevertheless enabled to pay off L. 4200, which, by the acts of 1786 and 1788, they had been empowered to borrow, and likewise to discharge the advances made by Sir William Forbes and Company; still leaving a balance of about L. 2000 of surplus duties in the hands of their treasurer. The funds being, therefore, still very limited, and only in a condition to enable the Board to erect a light-house of the ordinary construction, the erection of the light-house on the Pentland Skerries was resolved on; and the further consideration of the Bell Rock light-house reserved, until the funds should be in a more advanced state.
Pentland Skerries.
Regarding the site of the Pentland Firth Light-house.
Some difference of opinion arising among the gentlemen and merchants of Orkney, whether the light-house proposed for the Pentland Skerries should not rather be erected upon the island of Copinsha, situate about fifteen miles northward of the Portland Firth , the matter was referred to the opinion of the Association of Ship-owners of Liverpool, and to the Chambers of Commerce of Glasgow and Greenock, when these public bodies unanimously and strongly recommended the erection of the light-house on the Pentland Skerries, as the site best calculated for a direction to the Pentland Firth ; which was accordingly fixed upon by the Board. To mark this Light-house from the other lights upon the coast, it was necessary to make it a Distinguishing-light, which was effected by the erection of a higher and lower light-house tower, respectively 80 and 100 feet above the medium level of the sea, built at the distance of 60 feet asunder, and each having a light-room with reflectors, so as to show two distinct stationary lights, for as yet the Revolving-light had not been introduced upon this coast.
1794.
The author’s first voyage to the north.
The works at the Pentland Skerries were begun early in the spring of 1794. The masonry was executed by builders of Orkney; and the materials having been prepared, were partly landed on these small islands in the course of the preceding summer. The Skerries consist of two uninhabited islands, with some contiguous sunken rocks. They lie exposed to the uninterrupted force of the waves of the North Sea, and to the rapid tides and currents of the Pentland Firth , and present many convincing proofs of the wasting state of the land, by the action of the sea. The works here had been so laid out, that the towers should be in readiness for the erection of the light-rooms by the month of August; and it was expected that the lights would be ready for exhibition in the month of October. The author, to whose superintendance the completing of these light-houses was to be entrusted, as his first work for the Board, sailed from Leith on this service on the 2d July 1794; and after touching at Kinnaird Head Light-house, he landed at the Pentland Skerries on the 11th of that month, and found the masonry of the two light-house towers in such a state of forwardness, as to be then nearly ready for the light-rooms. In the month of September, these works were completed, and the lights were exhibited on the 1st day of October 1794.