In the Introduction, I have given an account of the institution of the Board of Commissioners of the Northern Light-houses; of the progress made in the erection of Light-houses on the coast of Scotland; the probable future operations of the Board, and the general economy or management of its affairs. I now come to treat in detail of the Bell Rock Light-house, as the chief object of this work; and, in the present chapter, I propose to give the general history, and a description of this dangerous Rock.
Name of the Rock.
Name.
Origin of the Name.
There is perhaps nothing in history more arbitrary, or difficult to account for, than the origin of proper names, nor, in general, any research more unsatisfactory, than a prolix inquiry into their etymology. The charts of the nautical surveyor are the proper records for the names of places upon the sea-coast; but such maps are comparatively of late invention. The first sea-chart which we hear of in England, was that brought from Spain in 1489, by Bartholomew Columbus, to illustrate his brother’s theory of the discovery of America; and the earliest, applicable to the coast of Scotland, is the chart of the voyage of James V., from the Firth of Forth, by the Orkney and Western Islands, to the Firth of Clyde and coast of Galloway, in the year 1540. This map was published at Paris by Nicolay D’Arfiville, Seigneur Du d’Aulphinois, &c. chief Cosmographer to the King of France, in 1583; and afterwards in Edinburgh, in the year 1688, by John Adair, F. R. S., Geographer for Scotland.
Inch Cape.
The French writer gives a hydrographical description of the coast of Scotland, in relation to the Royal voyage, from Leith to the Solway Firth , noticing the distances of places, the tides, and the rocks and sand-banks, or “dangers,” as they are more generally termed, which it was necessary to avoid. In adverting to the course from Leith by the east coast to Duncansby-Head, in Caithness, he observes, “Entre Finismes [Fifeness] et la pointe nommé Redde, xii mille à l’est sud-est du costé de la dicte pointe Redde, gist un danger appelé Inchkope.” This is unquestionably the Bell Rock, the inch or island of the Cape, and with a reference to the Redhead, to the north of Aberbrothock, the highest and most remarkable point on that coast. In Adair’s collection of nautical charts, and descriptive account of the eastern coast of Scotland, published in 1703, the Bell Rock is indifferently termed Scape and Cape; and the fishermen on the shores of Angus uniformly call it the Cape Rock. In some old charts, particularly by the Dutch, whose name for a headland is kappe, it is also called skape and scaup. It does not, however, seem that any inference can be drawn from these various appellations; and, although it were to be conjectured, that the Inch Cape was, at a very remote period, permanently above water, and in all respects an island, the most rational hypothesis would still remain, and be indeed confirmed, that this name was given it on account of the relation it bore, especially in situation, to the cape of Redhead.
Bell Rock.
It is perhaps more difficult to assign the true origin for the modern term of Bell Rock, by which this dangerous reef is now universally known. There is a tradition, that an Abbot of Aberbrothock directed a bell to be erected on the Rock, so connected with a floating apparatus, that the winds and sea acted upon it, and tolled the bell, thus giving warning to the mariner of his approaching danger. Upon similar authority, the bell, it is said, was afterwards carried off by pirates, and the humane intentions of the Abbot thus frustrated. This story has, by a modern poet, been made the subject of the ballad of “Sir Ralf the Rover,” which, for the reader’s amusement, is inserted in the Appendix, No. [II.]
Erection of a Bell.