BELL  or INCHCAPE

ROCK, a sandstone reef in the North Sea, it in . S.E. of Arbroath, belonging to Forfarshire, Scotland . It measures 2000 ft. in length, is under water at high tide, but at low tide is exposed for a few feet, the sea for a distance of r0o yds. around being then only three fathoms deep . Lying in the fair-way of vessels making or leaving the Tay and Forth, besides ports farther north, it was a constant menace to navigation . In the great gale of 1799 seventy sail, including the " York," 74 guns, were wrecked off the reef, and this disaster compelled the authorities to take steps to protect shipping . Next year Robert Stevenson modelled a tower and reported that its erection was feasible, but it was only in i8o6 that parliamentary powers were obtained, and operations began in August 1807 . Though John Rennie had meanwhile been associated with Stevenson as consulting engineer, the structure in design and details is wholly Stevenson's work . The tower is 100 ft. high; its diameter at the base is 42 ft., decreasing to 15 ft. at the top . It is solid for 3o ft. at which height the doorway is placed . The interior is divided into six storeys . After five years the building was finished at a cost of £61,3oo . Since the lighting no wrecks have occurred on the reef .

A bust of Stevenson by

Samuel Joseph (d . 185o) was placed in the tower . According to tradition an abbot of Aberbrothock (Arbroath) had ordered a bell—whence the name of the rock—to be fastened to the reef in such a way that it should respond to the movements of the waves, and thus always ring out a warning to mariners . This signal was wantonly destroyed by a pirate, whose ship was afterwards wrecked at this very spot, the rover and his menbeing drowned .