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Product Identifiers

PublisherHarperCollins

ISBN-100060194278

ISBN-139780060194277

eBay Product ID (ePID)269243

Product Key Features

Book TitleLighthouse Stevensons

Number of Pages304 Pages

LanguageEnglish

TopicMilitary Science, Europe / Great Britain / Scotland, Museums, Tours, Points of Interest, General, History

Publication Year1999

IllustratorYes

GenreTravel, Technology & Engineering, Science, History

AuthorHarpercollins Harpercollins Publishers Ltd., Bella Bathurst

FormatHardcover

Dimensions

Item Height1 in

Item Weight16.7 Oz

Item Length8.2 in

Item Width5.5 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceTrade

LCCN99-026174

Dewey Edition22

TitleLeadingThe

Dewey Decimal627.92209411

SynopsisA romantic historical story full of adventure and invention, The Lighthouse Stevensons is a unique account of how a single family virtually defined the Scottish coast by designing and building lighthouses in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. For centuries the seas around Scotland were notorious for shipwrecks. Mariners only aids were skill, luck, and a single coal-fire light on the east coast, which was usually extinguished by rain. In 1786 the Northern Lighthouse Trust was established, with Robert Stevenson appointed as chief engineer a few years later--the beginning of a partnership spanning almost two centuries and four generations of the same family, which became known as the "Lighthouse Stevensons." The Stevensons fought foul weather, jagged coastlines, and certain opposition to build these lighthouses in some of the most remote and inhospitable locations on the Scottish coast and reefs. They not only designed the lighthouses towers to resist the gales of the North Sea but supervised the actual construction under often desperate conditions and perfected a design of precisely chiseled interlocking granite blocks that would withstand the enormous waves that batter these stone pillars. The same Stevensons also developed the lamps and lenses of the lights themselves, which "sent a gleam across the wave" and saved the lives of thousands of sailors whose ships would otherwise have foundered on the headlands and hidden reefs of Scotland., For centuries the seas around Scotland were notorious for shipwrecks. Mariners' only aids were skill, luck, and single coal-fire light on the east coast, which was usually extinguished by rain. In 1786 the Northern Lighthouse Trust was established, with Robert Stevenson appointed as chief engineer a few years later. In this engrossing book, Bella Bathhurst reveals that the Stevensons not only supervised the construction of the lighthouses under often desperate conditions but also perfected a design of precisely chiseled interlocking granite blocks that would withstand the enormous waves that batter these stone pillars. The same Stevensons also developed the lamps and lenses of the lights themselves, which "sent a gleam across the wave" and prevented countless ships from being lost at sea. While it is the writing of Robert Louis Stevenson that brought fame to the family name, this mesmerizing account shows how his extraordinary ancestors changed the shape of the Scotland coast against incredible odds and with remarkable technical ingenuity.

LC Classification NumberVK1061.B38 1999