1810, November.
Saturday, 1st.
Their description of the effects of the Sea upon the Light-House.
It having been intimated at the work-yard, that a log of timber had come ashore at West-Haven, about six miles from Arbroath, James Glen, who knew every piece of timber upon the Bell Rock, was dispatched, to ascertain if it had drifted from thence; and, on his return, reported that the log had belonged to the Western Wharf. Mr Slight having got his apparatus prepared, went again off to the Rock with the workmen, when a large additional supply of water, fuel, and provisions, was also landed. It was now ascertained, that the whole of the western wharf, and part of its connecting railway, had been carried away, and that the circular-track and eastern-reach of the railways were much damaged. Mr Reid farther stated, that, during the late gales, particularly on Friday the 30th, the wind veering from S.E. to N.E., both he and Mr Fortune sensibly felt the house tremble, when particular seas struck, about the time of high-water; the former observing that it was a tremor of that sort which rather tended to convince him that every thing about the building was sound, and reminded him of the effect produced, when a good log of timber is struck sharply with a mallet; but, with every confidence in the stability of the building, he nevertheless confessed, that, in so forlorn a situation, they were not insensible to those emotions which, he emphatically observed, “made a man look back upon his former life.”
1810, December.
Thursday, 6th.
The Red-coloured glass arrives at Leith.
The Smeaton was now much wanted at Leith, where Mr Forrest had arrived from London on the 1st, with the plates of red-coloured glass; but the weather continued boisterous, and she was detained in the harbour of Arbroath with a gale at S.W. To-day the writer got notice from Mr Andrew Roger, merchant in St Monance, that some fishermen belonging to that village had picked up a raft of timber, strongly bolted together. This turned out to be part of the timber of the Western Wharf, which had drifted from the Rock on the 11th, and had been ever since floating about the Firth of Forth. It was picked up on the coast of Fife, about nine miles to the westward of the Isle of May.
Saturday, 8th.
The Reflecting apparatus sent from Leith.