STEVENSON, ROBERT.—This
eminent engineer, whose great professional talents are so signally attested
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 superintendence; and Robert, who was at first
designed for the ministry, received the earlier part of his education with a
view to that sacred profession. Circumstances, however, soon altered this
destination; for when he had finished his fifteenth year, his mother was
married to Mr. Thomas Smith, a widower, originally a tinsmith in Edinburgh,
but whose studies were devoted to engineering, and chiefly to the
construction and improvement of lighthouses. In this department, he had the
merit of substituting oil lamps with parabolic mirrors for the open coal
fires that had hitherto lighted our naval beacons—an improvement so justly
appreciated, that after the Lighthouse Board was established in 1786, Mr.
Smith was appointed its engineer.
Inchcape - The Lighthouse - A
Pioneering Spirit
The Inchcape lighthouse lies
11 miles out to sea off the East coast of Arbroath, Scotland. It stands on
one of the most treacherous submerged reefs in the northern hemisphere and
is one of the seven wonders of the Industrial Age.
Thanks to the pioneering spirit of a young engineer, Robert Stevenson, who
dreamed of building the impossible, a lighthouse was planned on the 'Rock'
that had claimed over 100 lives.
Despite many obstacles, Stevenson never lost faith in his plan, and by
February 1811, the lighthouse on Inchcape Rock was finished. It is the
oldest, sea-standing lighthouse in the world and today, still saves lives.
100 years later, inspired by this pioneering spirit, Inchcape's founder
James Lyle MacKay, when awarded a title for his services to industry became
the first 'Baron Inchcape of Strathnaver' and so named the company that he
led.
BBC The Lighthouse
Stevensons 2011
Lighthouses
By David Stevenson, Civil Engineer (1865) (pdf)
It is easy to guess how
quickly such a relationship must have changed the whole current of Mr.
Stevenson’s studies. No stranger who conversed with him, no phrenologist who
looked at him, could have failed to perceive at once that he was born an
engineer, and the new parental superintendence to which he was consigned,
was well fitted to develop his latent talents in this department.
Accordingly, he made such proficiency, that at the age of nineteen he was
intrusted by Mr. Smith with the erection of a lighthouse, which the latter
had planned for the island of Little Cumbrae, and been commissioned to
construct by the trustees of the Clyde Navigation. This task Mr. Stevenson
executed with such ability, and showed such talent in his new vocation, that
soon after he was adopted by Mr. Smith as his partner in the business. In
1799 he married the eldest daughter of Mr. Smith, whom he succeeded as
engineer and superintendent of lighthouses, and continued to hold this
office until he resigned it in 1843.
This change of occupation,
and the success that crowned it, required a correspondent change of study;
and accordingly Mr. Stevenson, throwing aside his Latin, which he had only
half mastered, and turning away from Greek, which he had not yet entered,
began to devote himself to the exact sciences. Opportunities, indeed, there
were comparatively few, on account of the active life which he had commenced
at an early period; but such as he possessed he improved to the uttermost.
In this way, while superintending the erection of the lighthouse at Cumbrae,
he availed himself of the cessation of the work during the winter months, by
attending the Andersonian Institution at Glasgow, where he studied the
mathematical and mechanical sciences connected with his profession. Here, he
had for his preceptor, Dr. Anderson himself, the honoured founder of the
institution, of whose valuable instructions Mr. Stevenson ever afterwards
retained an affectionate remembrance. He pursued the same course of
improvement in his education while employed by Mr. Smith in the erection of
lighthouses on the Pentland Skerries in Orkney, so that as soon as the
labours of each summer were ended, the winter months found him in close
attendance at the classes of the university of Edinburgh. In this way he
completed, during the course of several sessions, a curriculum that
comprised mathematics, natural philosophy, chemistry, and natural history,
to which he added logic, moral philosophy, and agriculture. It was the same
perseverance at work which struggled for a foundation upon the living rock
amidst the battling of waves and tempests, and having found it, persisted in
adding stone to stone, until a stately tower was erected, and a guiding
light kindled upon its summit. He thus became not only an accomplished
scientific scholar, but also a student of considerable literary attainments,
while he was employed the greater part of each year in contending with the
stormy seas of the Orkneys, and dwelling upon their bleak islets and
solitary shores. His first tour of inspection as superintendent of
lighthouses, was made in 1797, for which year he drew up the annual report
for the Board of Commissioners; and during his long tenure of office, that
extended over half a century, twenty-three lighthouses in the district of
the Commission, which he designed and executed, attested his unwearied
diligence, as well as professional skill. Many of these were constructed in
situations that tasked the utmost of scientific knowledge and anxious study,
while the successive steps of improvement which they exhibited, evinced the
fresh ardour with which he had advanced to every undertaking, and the
earnestness he had felt that each should prove the fittest and the best.
But the great work of Mr.
Stevenson’s life, and the durable monument of his professional attainments
and success, is to be found in the Bell Rock lighthouse, of which he
published such a full and interesting account in 1824, in one volume quarto.
This rock, a sunken reef in the Firth of Forth, situated in west longitude
from Greenwich 2° 22’, and in north latitude 56° 29’, and composed of red
sandstone, was found so dangerous to navigation, that attention had been
called to it at an early period, and, according to tradition, a remedy was
adopted to warn mariners from the dangerous spot, by a humane abbot of
Aberbrothock. This was a bell, erected upon the rock, and so connected with
a floating apparatus, that the action of the winds and seas caused the bell
to toll over the uproar of the waves amidst the darkest weather. And thus,
as the well-known ballad of Southey informs us—
"When the rock was hid by the surge’s
swell,
The mariners heard the warning bell;
And then they knew the perilous rock.
And blest the abbot of Aberbrothock."
The popular legend adds, that
a pestilent pirate, the enemy of God and man, in a mere spirit of wanton
mischief, silenced the ocean monitor, by taking down the bell, and throwing
it into the sea. But poetical justice was not long in overtaking him; for
only a year after, while pursuing his vocation in the same dangerous sea,
his ship in the dark drifted upon the now silent rock, and went down, with
the captain and all hands on board; while,
"Even in his dying fear,
One dreadful sound could the Rover hear,
Asound as ifwith the Inch-cape bell,
The devil below was ringing his knell."
After not only bell and pirate, but
abbot and abbey had passed away, the rock still retained its place, and its
wonted dangers, to the great annoyance as well as heavy loss of our
shipping. This was so much the case, especially in a great storm that
occurred in December, 1799, that it was ascertained not less than seventy
vessels had been stranded or lost upon the coast of Scotland alone, most of
which, it was supposed, would have found safety by running into the Firth of
Forth, had there been a lighthouse on the rock to direct them. This,
however, was not all, for it was supposed that the York, a ship of 74 guns,
of which no tidings could be heard, had been wrecked there, with the loss of
the whole crew. While the cry now became general for the erection of a
lighthouse on the Bell Rock, government, moved by the calamity that had
befallen the York, of which timbers were still floating for many miles upon
the coast, began to listen to the appeal. But the obstacles to be overcome
were of such a nature as had been hitherto untried in engineering; for while
the Eddystone lighthouse, which was proposed as the model, occupied a site
that was barely covered by the tide at high water, the Bell Rock was
barely uncovered at low water. These difficulties made the
corporation of the Trinity House of Leith advertise for plans that might
lead to the construction of a suitable edifice; and not less than three
temporary experimental beacons were successively erected upon the rock,
which were all speedily carried away. Fortunately it happened that the only
man of the day who seemed capable of overcoming such a combination of
obstacles from winds, and waves, and sunken rock, had long been brooding
silently upon the enterprise, and devising the means of success. Even before
the storm of 1799, Mr. Stevenson had prepared a pillar-formed model of a
lighthouse, which he hoped might be available for the Bell Rock; and in the
summer of 1800 he visited the rock in person, that he might judge of its
applicability. He soon saw that his pillar-shaped model would not suit the
situation; but he also saw that it was practicable to erect a solid stone
edifice instead, upon the plan of the Eddystone lighthouse. To work,
therefore, he went, in the construction of a new model, where massive blocks
of stone were to be dove-tailed into each other, so as to resist every
pressure, both laterally and perpendicularly, and so connected with iron
cased in lead, as to be proof against disruption; while the building itself,
high enough to surmount the waves at their wildest, was to occupy to the
best advantage the narrow foundation which the rock afforded, and present
the smallest front to the force of the tempest. These plans and models being
finished, were submitted to the Lighthouse Board, with estimates of the
expense of such a building, which amounted to £42,685, 8s. After much demur,
arising from the expense of the undertaking, his proposal was duly
sanctioned by act of parliament, and Mr. Stevenson was empowered to commence
operations. Now it was, however, that a full sense of his new
responsibility, hitherto viewed from a distance, assumed, when looked fully
in the face, a very formidable aspect. "The erection," he thus wrote in a
MS. which he kept for his own use, "on a rock about twelve miles from land,
and so low in the water that the foundation course must be at least on a
level with the lowest tide, was an enterprise so full of uncertainty and
hazard, that it could not fail to press on my mind. I felt regret that I had
not had the opportunity of a greater range of practice to fit me for such an
undertaking. But I was fortified by an expression of my friend Mr. Clerk (of
Eldin, the improver of naval tactics), in one of our conversations upon its
difficulties. ‘This work,’ said he, ‘is unique, and can be little forwarded
by experience of ordinary masonic operations. In this case, "Smeaton’s
Narrative" must be the text-book, and energy and perseverance the
pratique.’"
The work was commenced by
searching for such a vessel as would serve for a temporary lighthouse, as
well as a habitation for the workmen. This was soon found in a Prussian
fishing-vessel of 82 tons, one of the captures of the war, which being
rounded off both at stem and stern, was best adapted by its form for the new
service in which it was to be employed. After having been suitably fitted up
and rigged, this Pharos, as it was now named, was furnished with a large
copper lantern for each of its three masts, and moored near the Bell Rock.
Another vessel, expressly built for the purpose, called the Smeaton, of 40
tons, was employed in bringing the stones for the building, that were hewn
in the quarries of Rubeslaw near Aberdeen, and Mylnefield near Dundee, and
conveyed to Arbroath, the nearest harbour to the rock. The work itself was
commenced on the 18th of August, 1807; and such was the clink and bang of
hammers, the hurrying of feet, and the din of human voices that now took
possession of the solitude, that the affrighted seals, which had hitherto
regarded the Bell Rock as their own exclusive property, went off in shoals
in quest of new settlements. It is not our purpose to detail the daily, and
almost hourly difficulties with which Mr. Stevenson had to contend in a task
of seven years’ duration, and the dangers to which he was exposed, while he
had to battle with an almost impracticable foundation, and the continual war
and shifting of elements that opposed every step of his progress. On one
occasion, when the Smeaton was drifted out to sea, he was left with
thirty-two workmen upon the rock, which, by the progress of the flood-tide,
would soon be submerged at least twelve feet, while the two boats which they
had at hand could have carried off little more than half of the
company—after perhaps a life-and-death struggle with their less fortunate
companions. At this critical moment he thus describes their situation, in
the third person: "The writer had all along been considering various
schemes, providing the men could be kept under command, which might be put
in practice for the general safety, in hopes that the Smeaton might be able
to pick up the boats to leeward when they were obliged to leave the rock. He
was, accordingly, about to address the artificers on the perilous nature of
their circumstances, and to propose that all hands should unstrip their
upper clothing when the higher parts of the rock were laid under water; that
the seamen should remove every unnecessary weight and incumbrance from the
boats; that a specified number of men should go into each boat, and that the
remainder should hang, by the gunwales, while the boats were to be rowed
gently towards the Smeaton, as the course to the Pharos or floating light
lay rather to windward of the rock. But when he attempted to speak, his
mouth was so parched that his tongue refused utterance, and he now learned
by experience that the saliva is as necessary as the tongue itself for
speech. He then turned to one of the pools on the rock, and lapped a little
water, which produced an immediate relief. But what was his happiness, when,
on rising from this unpleasant beverage, some one called out ‘A boat! a
boat!’ and on looking around, at no great distance, a large boat was seen
through the haze making towards the rock. This at once enlivened and
rejoiced every heart. The timeous visitor proved to be James Spink, the Bell
Rock pilot, who had come express from Arbroath with letters. Every one felt
the most perfect happiness at leaving the Bell Rock this morning, though a
very hard and even dangerous passage to the floating light still awaited us,
as the wind by this time had increased to a pretty hard gale, accompanied
with a considerable swell of sea. The boats left the rock about nine, but
did not reach the vessel till twelve o’clock noon, after a most disagreeable
and fatiguing passage of three hours. Every one was as completely drenched
in water as if he had been dragged astern of the boats." During the two
first seasons occupied on the Bell Rock, Mr. Stevenson’s abode was the
Pharos or floating light, as uncomfortable as well as perilous a home as the
worst hulks which justice could have devised for the taming of a sturdy
malefactor. Sometimes they had to ride out a gale, and endure all the
horrors that precede a shipwreck, without the consolation of feeling that a
voyage was in progress, or a port at hand into which they might run at the
worst. On one occasion, indeed, after a storm, they found themselves making
a voyage in sad earnest, with the prospect of being dashed against the Bell
Rock by way of termination—for the Pharos had broke from its moorings, and
was drifting, none knew whither. Even in fair weather, it rolled like a tub,
or rather like a barrel, so that such rocking was provocative of anything
but tranquil repose. After the beacon or barrack was erected, Mr. Stevenson
took up his abode in it; but here the matter was not greatly amended, as
this habitation was nothing more than a sort of pigeon-house edifice,
perched on logs, and exposed to the onset of every wave, while the tide in
calm weather rose upon it to the height of sixteen feet. Let the following
description of a few hours spent in it suffice:—"The gale continues with
unabated violence to-day, and the sprays rise to a still greater height,
having been carried over the masonry of the building, or about 90 feet above
the level of the sea. At four o’clock this morning it was breaking into the
cook’s berth, when he rung the alarm-bell, and all hands turned out to
attend to their personal safety. The floor of the smith’s or mortar gallery
was now completely burst up by the force of the sea, when the whole of the
deals and the remaining articles upon the floor were swept away, such as the
cast-iron mortar-tubs; the iron hearth of the forge, the smith’s bellows,
and even his anvil, were thrown down upon the rock. The boarding of the
cookhouse, or story above the smith’s gallery, was also partly carried away,
and the brick and plaster-work of the fireplace shaken and loosened. At low
water it was found that the chain of the movable beam-crane at the western
wharf had been broken, which set the beam at liberty, and greatly endangered
the quay ropes by its motion Before the tide rose to its full height to-day,
some of the artificers passed along the bridge into the lighthouse, to
observe the effects of the sea upon it, and they reported that they had felt
a slight tremulous motion in the building when great seas struck it in a
certain direction about highwater-mark. On this occasion the sprays were
again observed to wet the balcony, and even to come over the parapet wall
into the interior of the light room. In this state of the weather, Captain
Wilson and the crew of the floating light were much alarmed for the safety
of the artificers upon the rock, especially when they observed with a
telescope that the floor of the smith’s gallery had been carried away, and
that the triangular cast-iron sheer crane was broken down. It was quite
impossible, however, to do anything for their relief until the gale should
take off."
Such is but a specimen of the
obstacles encountered and the toils endured in erecting that wondrous
edifice, the Bell Rock lighthouse. It was completed in December, 1810, and
since that period it would be difficult to estimate the benefit it has
conferred in that dangerous sea on the ships of every nation, which, but for
its guidance, would have been dashed upon the rock, or wrecked on the
neighbouring shore. There, from night to night, its lamp has continued to
shine like a guiding star; while in snow and haze, its bell is heard as a
warning voice through the thick atmosphere, when the light is obscured, or
so dim, that its meaning is unintelligible to the bewildered navigator. Not
fully four years after it was finished, when Sir Walter Scott made that
well-known cruise among the northern seas, which he has entitled in his
diary, "Voyage in the Lighthouse Yacht to Nova Zembla, and the Lord knows
where," he thus describes the edifice, at that time still fresh in early
youth, and regarded with all the pleasure of a startling novelty.
"July
30, (1814) .—Waked at six by the steward; summoned to
visit the Bell Rock, where the beacon is well worthy attention. Its
dimensions are well known; but no description can give the idea of this
slight, solitary, round tower, trembling amid the billows, and fifteen miles
from Arbroath, the nearest shore. The fitting up within is not only
handsome, but elegant. All work of wood (almost) is wainscot; all
hammer-work brass; in short, exquisitely fitted up. You enter by a ladder of
rope, with wooden steps, about thirty feet from the bottom, where the
mason-work ceases to be solid, and admits of round apartments. The lowest is
a storehouse for the people’s provisions, water, &c; above that a storehouse
for the lights, of oil, &c.; then the kitchen of the people, three in
number; then their sleeping chamber; then the saloon or parlour, a neat
little room; above all, the lighthouse; all communicating by oaken ladders,
with brass rails, most handsomely and conveniently executed. Breakfasted in
the parlour." On being requested to inscribe his name in the album of the
tower, Sir Walter, after breakfast, wrote the following lines, which Mr.
Stevenson adopted for the motto of his work on the Bell Rock lighthouse
"Pharosloquitur:—
"Far in the bosom of the deep,
O’er these wild shelves my watch I keep;
A ruddy gem of changeful light,
Bound on the dusky brow of night:
The seaman bids my lustre hail,
And scorns to strike his timorous sail."
The whole diary of this
voyage in the northern seas, which the great poet and novelist has fully
detailed, abounds with incidental notices, in which Mr. Stevenson’s amiable
disposition, as well as remarkable professional ability, diligence, and
enterprise, are strikingly exemplified. It was one of those periodical
voyages which Mr. Stevenson was wont to make in the erection of lighthouses,
and the superintendence of northern lights; and besides three commissioners
of the board, there were three pleasure tourists, of whom Sir Walter was
one. The vessel in which they sailed was the lighthouse yacht, of six guns
and ten men; for besides the storms of the Atlantic, lately a brush with a
French cruizer, and even now with a Yankee privateer, might be no improbable
contingency. The singular coasts that had to be surveyed, the strange places
to be selected for the erection of lighthouses, and the difficulties that
had to be overcome in such erections, will be best understood from the
following quotation, which, therefore, notwithstanding its length, we give
without curtailment:--
"Auqust
27, 1814.—The wind, to which we resigned
ourselves, proves exceedingly tyrannical, and blows squally the whole night,
which, with the swell of the Atlantic, now unbroken by any islands to
windward, proves a means of great combustion in the cabin. The dishes and
glasses in the steward’s cupboards become locomotive—portmanteaus and
writing-desks are more active than necessary—it is scarce possible to keep
one’s self within bed, and impossible to stand upright, if you rise. Having
crept upon deck about four in the morning, I find we are beating to windward
off the Isle of Tyree, with the determination on the part of Mr. Stevenson
that his constituents should visit a reef of rocks called Skerry Vhor,where he thought it would be essential to have a lighthouse. Loud
remonstrances on the part of the commissioners, who one and all declare they
will subscribe to his opinion, whatever it may be, rather than continue this
infernal buffeting. Quiet perseverance on the part of Mr. S., and great
kicking, bouncing, and squabbling upon that of the yacht, who seems to like
the idea of Skerry Vhor as little as the commissioners. At length, by
dint of exertion, came in sight of this long ridge of rocks (chiefly under
water), on which the tide breaks in a most tremendous style. There appear a
few low broad rocks at one end of the reef, which is about a mile in length.
These are never entirely under water, though the surf dashes over them. To
go through all the forms, Hamilton, Duff, and I resolved to land upon these
bare rocks in company with Mr. Stevenson. Pull through a very heavy swell
with great difficulty, and approach a tremendous surf dashing over black
pointed rocks. Our rowers, however, get the boat into a quiet creek between
two rocks, where we contrive to land, well wetted. I saw nothing remarkable
in my way, excepting several seals, which we might have shot, but, in the
doubtful circumstances of the landing, we did not care to bring guns. We
took possession of the rock in name of the commissioners, and generously
bestowed our own great names on its crags and creeks. The rock was carefully
measured by Mr. S. It will be a most desolate position for a lighthouse—the
Bell Rock and Eddystone a joke to it, for the nearest land is the wild
island of Tyree, at fourteen miles’ distance. So much for the Skerry Vhor."—Itis only necessary to add to this amusing sketch, that the lighthouse
contemplated by Mr. Stevenson was erected in 1842, by Mr. Alan Stevenson,
his son, and successor in office, who in this difficult undertaking not only
followed his father’s instructions, but emulated his perseverance and
scientific ability.
During the long course of Mr.
Stevenson’s professional labours, his calm calculating sagacity, and
adaptation of means at once simple and effectual to an end that seemed
unattainable, or not to be attained without the most complex agencies, were
conspicuous to the last; and although not himself an inventor, he could
largely improve on the inventions of others, and turn them to the best
account. It was thus that the Eddystone lighthouse suggested to him the
bolder and more difficult undertaking of that on the Bell Rock; while his
plan of the jib and balance-cranes, and the changes which he
adopted in the masonry of the building, especially in the laying of the
floors, so that their stones should form part of the outward wall, were
important improvements on the plans of Mr. Smeaton, whom he still was proud
to call his master. The best mode of lighting these ocean lamps was also a
subject of his inquiry; and the result was, his invention of the
intermittent and the flashing lights, the former suddenly
disappearing at irregular intervals, and the latter emitting a powerful
gleam every five seconds—a mode of illumination distinct from that of the
ordinary lighthouses in the same range, and admirably suited for the
dangerous navigation of narrow seas. For the last of these inventions he was
honoured with a gold medal from the king of the Netherlands. While his
scientific anxiety and skill were thus devoted to the improving and
perfecting of those buildings upon which the safety of navigation so much
depends, he did not overlook the welfare of those to whom the
superintendence of their bale-fires is committed; and his humane
regulations, by which the comforts of these self-devoted prisoners of the
ocean pillars were promoted, as well as his rules of discipline, by which
their duties were simplified, introduced a marked change for the better into
the dreary life of those upon whose watchfulness and fidelity so vast an
amount of human happiness is at stake. Mr. Stevenson, indeed, may justly be
said not only to have created the lighthouse system of Scotland, where it
was so much needed, but to have brought it also to that state of perfection
in which it has become the model to other maritime nations.
Independently of his duties
connected with northern lights, Mr. Stevenson, in his general capacity as a
civil engineer, was frequently a co-operator with Rennie, Telford, and the
other chief engineers of the day. He also, after the peace of 1815, was the
principal adviser in the construction of those new roads, bridges, harbours,
canals, and railways, towards which the national energy and capital were now
directed. Even the beautiful approach to the city of Edinburgh from the
east, by the Calton Hill, was planned by him, and executed under his
direction. While his impress was thus stamped upon the public works of
Scotland, he was often consulted upon those of England and Ireland; and his
ingenious plans of simplifying and adapting, which he had so successfully
employed upon one element, were followed by those which were equally fitted
for the other. In this way, his suggestion of the new form of a suspension
bridge applicable to small spans, by which the necessity for tall piers is
avoided, was partially adopted in the bridge over the Thames at Hammersmith.
While planning a timber bridge for the Meikle Ferry, he also devised an arch
of such simple construction, composed of thin layers of plank bent into the
circular form, and stiffened by king-post pieces, on which the level
roadway rests, that this form of bridging has come into very general use in
the construction of railways.
As an author Mr. Stevenson
has not been particularly fertile. He sat down to draw a plan instead of
excogitating a theory, and his published work was the erection itself,
instead of a volume to show how it might be accomplished. Still, however, he
has written sufficiently for one who did so much. Independently of his large
work upon the Bell Rock lighthouse, he wrote several articles in the "Encyclopedia
Britannica,"and Brewster’s "Edinburgh Encyclopedia," and other scientific
journals. In 1817 he published a series of letters in the "Scots Magazine,"
giving an account of his tour through the Netherlands, and a description of
the engineering works connected with the drainage and embankment of Holland.
His professional printed reports and contributions are also sufficient to
occupy four goodly quarto volumes. Owing, however, to the obstacles under
which his early education was impeded, he had not acquired that facility in
composition which a commencement in youth is best fitted to impart, so that
we question whether, in his great achievement of the Bell Rock, his book or
his lighthouse occasioned him most trouble. In 1815 he became a fellow of
the Royal Society of Edinburgh; he afterwards joined the Geological Society
of London, and the Wernerian and Antiquarian Societies of Scotland.
In private life Mr. Stevenson
was endeared to all who knew him, by his lively intelligent conversation,
kind disposition, and benevolent deeds, while his whole course was a
beautiful illustration of the Christian character superinduced upon the
highest scientific excellence. And as he had lived, so he died, at the ripe
age of seventy-nine, at peace with the world he was leaving, and rejoicing
in the hope of a better to come. His decease occurred at his residence in
Baxter’s Place, Edinburgh, on the 12th of July, 1850. His most fitting
monument is an admirable marble bust likeness, executed by Samuel Joseph, at
the command of the Commissioners of the Board of Northern Lights, and placed
by them in the library of the Bell Rock lighthouse.
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