Land at 9 A. M., and by a quarter past 12 noon, 23 stones had been laid. The works being now somewhat elevated by the lower courses, we got quit of the very serious inconvenience of pumping water to clear the foundation-pit. This gave much facility to the operations, and was noticed with expressions of as much happiness by the artificers as the seamen had shewn when relieved of the continual trouble of carrying the smiths’ bellows off the Rock, prior to the erection of the Beacon.
One of the Artificers loses a finger.
While the workmen were laying the closing or last stone of the former course, John Bonnyman, one of the most active and expert of the masons, met with an unlucky accident in the following manner. The moveable beam of the building-crane having been lowered to a horizontal position, for the purpose of laying the stone at the circumference of the course, Bonnyman, who was directing it into its birth with a small pince in his right hand, had inadvertently rested his left hand on the beam, near the sheave or pulley, at its extremity, when one of the links unfortunately caught his hand, and before the crane could be stopped, the chain had passed over the middle joint of the fore-finger, and cut it so nearly off, that he applied to the writer, who was standing by, to relieve him of the almost detached part. But having no great inclination for the performance of operations of this kind, the severed parts were set together and bandaged in as careful a manner as circumstances would admit, when the patient was sent in a fast-rowing boat to Arbroath for medical aid. It was nevertheless soon afterwards found necessary to amputate the finger, and Bonnyman became a successful candidate for a light-keeper’s birth.
Sunday, 11th.
Progress of the works stopped for want of granite.
Having landed this morning at 10, the work was continued during four hours, when 14 stones were laid; but its regular progress had now to be stopped for a time, owing to the want of stones from the work-yard, where some blocks of granite were waited for from the quarries. In the afternoon the Smeaton arrived with a few hearting or interior stones of the course in hand; but the wind having been for some days past in the N.E., accompanied with a considerable swell of sea, it was not found practicable to make a landing, and the praam-boat, after having been loaded, was made fast to her moorings: consequently no landing was made on the Rock with the night tide.
Monday, 12th.
Building level with the higher parts of the Rock.
The wind being still at N.E., the swell was so great that the boats landed with much difficulty on the Rock this morning at half-past 11 o’clock, but could only remain for an hour and a half, owing to the heavy sea which ran upon it. This tide was employed in completing the boring of the trenail-holes, and in securing the stones which had been laid. The cranes were also raised from the second to the third course, which being 18 inches in thickness, the artificers who worked them now stood nearly on a level with the highest parts of the Rock.
Tuesday, 13th.