It is with much diffidence that the author now lays before Your Majesty, an Account of the arduous national undertaking of erecting a Light-house on the Bell Rock,-a sunk reef, lying about eleven miles from the shore, and so situated as to have long proved an object of dread to mariners on the eastern coast of Scotland, especially when making for the Friths of Forth and Tay.This edifice being of the utmost consequence to the safety of Your Majesty's Ships of War upon the North Sea station, and of the commercial shipping of this part of the empire, he presumes to hope for Your Majesty's favourable acceptance of his work. From the known partiality, also, of Your Majesty for naval excursions, which so recently led the Royal Squadron within a comparatively short distance of the Bell Rock Light-house, in the course of Your Majesty's most gracious Visit to your ancient Kingdom of Scotland, he flatters himself that Your Majesty may feel an additional interest in the subject of this volume.