Bell Rock
Books
- Eleven Miles Out Robert Stevenson, John Rennie, and the Building of the Bell Rock Lighthouse · Liszt Think
Eleven miles off the Scottish coast, a reef lies submerged for twenty hours a day. In the early nineteenth century, raising a granite tower on this treacherous foundation seemed impossible.
- The Rock and the Reckoning…t. It spoke of pounds sterling, of premiums risen beyond bearing, of a hazard that had become an economic drain upon the eastern trade. The Bell Rock, as mariners called it, lay submerged for twenty hours of every twenty-four. What little showed at low water appeared as a dark ridge strea…
- The Engineer’s Apprenticeship…e lectures on moral philosophy, though those taught him to think of utility as a public trust. The education that would prepare him for the Bell Rock happened in moments like this: when a project stalled, when the sea refused to cooperate, when the men looked at the young engineer and wai…
- A Ship Moored Over the Reef…wooden mallets, the heavy hand-pump for clearing seawater from the foundation holes. The ship rolled gently at its mooring, a mile off the Bell Rock, while the master of the work, Robert Stevenson, stood amidships with a slate and a pocket watch. The tide tables said the reef would clear…