[Sidenote: Funds for the Light-house Board inadequate.]
In the year 1793, when Admiral Cochrane addressed his letter to the Light-house Board, its surplus funds amounted only to a few hundred pounds; a sum so inadequate to meet the necessary expenditure of such a work, that the Commissioners judged it better for the interests of navigation, to go forward with the less expensive improvements on other parts of the coast, aware that nothing essential could be undertaken at the Bell Rock without the effectual aid of Government.
In this state, matters were allowed to rest till the great storm in December 1799, already noticed, which roused the public mind to fresh speculations about the necessity of some erection being made upon the Bell Rock; not merely as a local improvement, but as one essentially calculated to benefit the ships navigating the German Ocean, by opening the Firth of Forth more effectually as a place of safety in easterly storms, so that the Bell Rock, in place of being the dread of mariners, might in future become a point from which they would take their departure, and for which they might steer in sailing for the coast. Nautical and commercial men, especially, were interested, and felt this state of things in its fullest extent. Remarks were accordingly made in several of the periodical publications of the day, calling the attention of the public to the erection of a light-house there, as a subject of national importance.
In order to advance this object, the Corporation of the Trinity-House of Leith, made public advertisements, calling on persons likely to produce some practical plan that might lead to the means of making the erection in question. This, of course, produced various propositions on the subject.
[Sidenote: Designs by Captain Brodie and Mr Couper.]
The late Captain Joseph Brodie of the Royal Navy, prepared and brought forward a model of a cast-iron light-house, supported upon four pillars, to be built and connected together in a very strong manner. This model was made by Mr Joseph Couper, Iron-Founder in Leith, who, in conjunction with Captain Brodie, proposed to erect a light-house on this plan on the Bell Rock, on being authorised to draw certain duties from shipping for their mutual remuneration. With this view, they sent their model, and made certain propositions to the different commercial towns on the coast, as Newcastle, Dundee, and Aberdeen. After having been at considerable trouble and expence with this scheme, as a private adventure, these gentlemen applied to the Commissioners of the Northern Light-houses, requesting their inspection of this model. The design, however, was not altogether approved of by the Light-house Board, in the form in which it had been modelled; yet such was the confidence of its projectors, that at different times, in pursuance of their plan, they erected two temporary beacons, constructed with spars of fir-timber; these unfortunately were almost immediately washed down. The Merchants of Leith, applauding the great perseverance of these gentlemen, aided their exertions by a subscription of about L. 150, when they erected a third beacon on the Bell Rock on a more extended scale. It consisted of four spars of fir-timber, each about 40 feet in length, strengthened by flat bars of iron, laid the lengthway of the spars, which were kept in their places by rings or hoops of iron, firmly wedged over them. These spars, when erected upon the rock, formed a common diameter of about 20 feet at the base, and crossed each other about 6 feet from the top. They were let into holes made in the rock, of about ten inches in depth, and were fixed by straps of iron, forming bats of about two inches square, and about six inches in length, which were also let into the rock, and run up with melted lead. At the place of junction, near the top, the spars were bolted together with iron, and above this, they were connected with small pieces of timber, nailed to the principal spars. After much labour and difficulty, with the assistance of a number of workmen, this temporary erection was fixed on the Bell Rock, in the month of July 1803. In the month of August the writer landed on the rock and examined it; but when the gales of winter set in, this erection also disappeared, having never been seen after the 20th of December. Nothing further was attempted to be done upon the Bell Rock till the author commenced the Light-house operations in the year 1807, by direction of the Commissioners of the Northern Light-houses.