1857.] on the Great Bell of Westmimter, 373 



worst, and had a peculiar unsteadiness of tone, and sounded more 

 of what they call the harmonics along with the fundamental note, 

 instead of less, as we expected. 



But still we have to ascertain what should be the thickness of 

 the sound-bow itself (which is often called for shortness the thick- 

 ness of the bell). The large bells of a peal are sometimes made 

 as thin as ^'^th of the diameter, and by one of the modern bell- 

 founders even thinner, and the small ones as thick as V^*^ ^^ the 

 diameter. It is clear that the most effective proportion is from ^-^ 

 to T^« In casting peals of bells it is necessary to take rather a 

 wider range, in order to prevent the treble being so small and weak 

 as to be overpowered by the tenor ; though here I am convinced 

 that the modern bell founders run into tlie opposite error, and 

 always make their large bells too thin. I know several peals in 

 London in which the large bells are hardly heard when they are all 

 rung, and are besides very inferior in quality to the others. Again, 

 if you make the small bells too thick, for the purpose of getting a 

 larger bell to sound the proper note, you approach the state in 

 which the bell is a lump of metal too thick to have any musical 

 vibration. This is a much less common fault than the other, because 

 the nearly universal demand for as deep notes as can be got for the 

 money is a strong temptation to make the thickest bells, i.e. the 

 small ones, only just thick enough, and the large ones much too 

 thin. Nothing can be more absurd than to spend from £300 to 

 £800 on a peal of bells, which are merely got for the purpose of 

 giving pleasure to those who hear them, and then insisting on their 

 being made in a key which they cannot reach without being thin 

 and bad and disagreeable. People evidently fancy they are getting 

 more for their money by getting bells in a low key than a high one, 

 whereas they are really getting less, inasmucli as they only get the 

 same quantity of metal and have it spent in producing a bad article 

 instead of a good one. The tenor of the new (third) peal at the 

 Exchange is only 33 cwt., and sounds the same note, C, as that of 

 Bow Church, which weighs 53 cwt. It is very evident that one of 

 them must be wrong : you need only go and hear one strike eleven 

 and the other twelve, and you will not have much doubt which it 

 is. It is true that the tenor of the previous (second) peal at the 

 Exchange, though still worse, was of the same weight, and as the 

 founders alleged in their own defence, from the same patterns as 

 Bow ; but the bells must have been of bad metal, and some of them 

 were certainly bad castings. The thickness of the Westminster 

 bell was designed to be -^-^\}a. of the diameter, or 9 inches, which 

 would have made it 14 tons, the weight which was prescribed for it 

 twelve or thirteen years ago, long before I had anything to do witii 

 the bells or the clock. By some mistake in setting out the pattern, 

 or making the mould, which the founders have never been able to 

 account for, the bell was made 9§ inches thick, which is very nearly 

 V^th of the diameter, 9 ft. 5iin., and which increased the weight to 



