Volume 3 > Half-Volume 6

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large iron boxes. The third apartment is a work-
shop ; the fourth is the provision store; and the
fifth is the kitchen. Above are two stories, each
divided into two sleeping apartments, for the four
light>keepers. Over them is the room for the visit-
ing officers; then follows the oil-store, and lastly
comes the light-room, making in all twelve apart-
ments. . . . The passage from story to story is by
oaken trap ladders, passing through hatches in each
floor, and partitioned off from each apartment, in order
to prevent accidents and to check cold draughts."
It is only necessary to add, that it is the giant of
British lighthouses; for while the Eddystone is 68,
and the Bell Rock 100 feet above the first entire
course, the Skerryvore is 138�5 feet. It also differs
from the others in form, approaching more nearly a
conic frustum, by which it is better fitted to resist
the violence of wind and sea. The whole building
was completed and the light of Skerryvore kindled
on the night of February 1st, 1844.
The suspense occasioned by such a daring under-
taking as that of the erection of a lighthouse on the
rock of Skerryvore, the responsibility and the risk,
the hardships, toils, and privations of this bleak,
barren, and stormy northern solitude, were enough
to have exhausted the patience and worn out the
nerves of the strongest constitutions. And still more
was this the case with the delicate frame and sus-
ceptible temperament of Alan Stevenson. But he
bravely battled out through days of study and nights
of watching and danger upon that lonely rock,
until the stupendous structure was complete, and its
light kindled as the beacon-star to direct the course
of the midnight mariner. Not until the work was
done did he find that his health was broken, and
broken too beyond the hope of recovery; and al-
though he continued his professional duties, it was
with a strength that was always decaying, so that in
1852 he bade adieu to his profession and society, and
retired to tranquil life in Portobello, where he died
on the 23d of December, 1865, in the fifty-ninth
year of his age. His merits in lighthouse engineer-
ing were recognized not only at home but abroad,
and he had medals presented him by the Emperor of
Russia and the Kings of Prussia and Holland. When
his health gave way, he resigned his membership as
a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, but
this resignation, in consequence of the respect in
which he was held, the society declined to receive,
and continued to him the privileges of his fellowship.
It is seldom that a person devoted to the exact
sciences is also to be found in the walks of elegant
literature, and a mathematician is forgiven if he is a
mathematician and nothing more. But the genius
of Mr. Stevenson was not confined to the erection of
lighthouses. He was also an accomplished classical
scholar, who knew Homer by heart, and could read
the comedies of Aristophanes almost as easily as the
plays of Shakspeare; and he was thoroughly conver-
sant with Italian and Spanish, and the works of the
best authors in these languages. But more than
this, he was an excellent poet�one who showed that
he could "build the lofty rhyme,"and might have
constructed an epic, had he foregone the equally ar-
duous task of rearing lighthouses. These refined
tastes formed the solace of his professional toils, and
afterwards the occupations of his retirement. In
proof of this, while he was alone for months on
the Skerryvore rock, he read Don Quixote, Aristo-
phanes, and Dante twice through, besides com-
posing occasional verses; and when he was laid
aside by his last illness, which was both painful
and lingering, he translated the " Ten Hymns" of
Synesius, Bishop of Cyrene, which were printed
for private circulation. Among these were also
several original pieces, of which the following son-
net " To the Ringing-stone at Ralaphetrish, in the
island of Tyree," from which the materials of the
building at Skerryvore were taken, is a specimen:
"Mysterious stone! rude, shapeless as thou art,
Thou seem'st unconscious of the ocean's rage,
Or winter-tempests that for many an age
Have howled around thee: say, hast thou a heart
Deep prison'd in thy mass, that feels the smart
Of others' woes�woes of the gentler kind,
Which spring up easily in woman's mind?
For, touched by maiden's hand, with gentle art,
Thou givest sighs that tremble on the breeze
Which sweeps around the western Hebrides;
Such as Andromeda, from ocean's cave,
Might breathe responsive to some sorrowing maid,
Whom slighted vows or dear hopes long delayed,
Have driven to seek near thee a lonely ocean grave."
The following specimen, of a more lively char-
acter, is his welcome to the music of a thawing
wind, as it entered his northern solitude bearing
spring upon its wings:�
"So we mused, and thankful laid us down to take the gift of
sleep
(Many weary hearts are breaking, many waking eyes now
weep);
Soon we heard the mighty cadence of the blast that sweeps
along�
Not the moan of surly winter�'tis beneficent as strong.
Rude its voice, yet somewhat kindly does it burst upon my
ear,
Straightway green fields, buds, and blossoms to my fancy's eye
appear;
All things by God's hand are temper'd, and a holy end fulfil;
Troubles cast the shades which give us resting-places calm
and still.
Rightly had I deem'd: at morning, when I went to meet the
sun,
On the slopes the green earth saw I, for the snow was past
and gone;
From the glowing south the tempest, over Afric's burning sands,
Thirsty came and drank the ice-cold fountains of the snowy
lands."
Of Mr. Stevenson's works of a professional char-
acter, the most important is " Account of the Skerry-
vore Lighthouse, with Notes on the Illumination of
Lighthouses," 1848; History, Construction, and Il-
lumination of Lighthouses, 1850; and a biographical
sketch of his father, the late Robert Stevenson,
1861. He was also a contributor to the Encyclo-
p�dia Britannica and the Edinburgh Philosophical
Journal.
STEVENSON, ROBERT. This eminent engineer,
whose great professional talents are so signally at-
tested by that wondrous structure the Bell Rock
lighthouse, was born at Glasgow, on the 8th of June,
1772. He was the only son of Allan Stevenson,
merchant in Glasgow, partner in an establishment
connected with St. Christopher, West Indies, in which
island he died, while on a visit to his brother, who
managed the business there. By this event Robert
was left an orphan while still in infancy; and to add
to the difficulties that beset his early life, his uncle
in St. Christopher died soon after his father, leaving
the mercantile affairs of their establishment involved
in such embarrassment as must always ensue on the
want of superintendence. In this way the mother
of Robert Stevenson, whose name was Jane Lillie,
was obliged, in the management of her household, to
depend mainly upon her own unaided energies. She,
however, discharged her task with that ability which
so often compensates for the want of paternal super-
intendence; and Robert, who was at first designed
for the ministry, received the earlier part of his edu-
cation with a view to that sacred profession. Cir-
cumstances, however, soon altered this destination;
for when he had finished his fifteenth year his mother