61 



BELL; BELL FOUNDING. 



BELLES LETTRES. 



of blocks, brought from Cornwall ; while the copper is old ship sheath- 

 ing and other fragments. These are melted in a reverberatory furnace, 

 by the heat of billets of wood, a kind of fuel less injurious to the metal 

 than either coal or coke. All being ready, the earth which stops an 

 orifice in the lower part of the furnace is knocked or dug away, a narrow 

 jet instantly pours out from the opening, and a stream of liquid fire (for 

 so it seems to the eye) runs along the channel in the loam, and flows 

 into the mould, bubbling and hissing, and giving forth greenish sparks. 

 When the mould i full, the metal is allowed to remain till perfectly 

 cool ; the loam is then removed, the external " shell " lifted or cut from 

 the bell, the bell lifted off the core, and the core pulled down. If the 

 bell be very large, it alone occupies the pit ; but if of smaller size, such 

 as from three or four to ten or twelve hundredweights, six or eight 

 may be cast in one pit at one time. 



The tone of a befl depends conjointly on the diameter and the thick- 

 ness ; a small bell or a thick bell giving, relatively, a more acute tone 

 than one which is either larger or thinner. Hence the founder regulates 

 the diameter and thickness according to the musical pitch of the tone 

 which the bell is to yield ; but as this cannot be rigidly attained by 

 casting only, the bells (say a set to form chimes) are attuned by 

 chipping away some of the metal with a sharp-pointed hammer; 

 reducing the diameter at the lower edge when the tone is too low, and 

 reducing the thickness at the part where the hammer strikes when the 

 tone is too acute. 



Many bells of considerable size have been constructed within the last 

 few years. In 1 845 Messrs. Mears, of Whitechapel, cast a bell for the 

 south tower of York Minster. It was larger than any other at that 

 time in the United Kingdom, being twelve tons in weight, seven tons 

 heavier than the Great Tom of Lincoln, and five heavier than the Old 

 Tom of Oxford. The metal took twelve days to cool. The cost was 

 about 2000/. This was, however, exceeded in size by one cast by the 

 same founders for the Roman Catholic cathedral at Montreal. This 

 bell is 8J feet in diameter, and weighs 13J tons (more than 30,000 Ibs.) 

 It required the melting of twenty-five tons of metal to effect the 

 canting. The thickest part of the bell the " sound-bow," where the 

 clapper or hammer strikes is eight inches. 



The great bell at Westminster (which will probably first begin its 

 regular working in the present year, 1859,) is interesting, not only for 

 it* vast size but for the incidents in its history. From its first 

 planning to its completion no less a time than sixteen years elapsed ; 

 chiefly owing to the disagreements relating to the great clock with 

 which it is associated. At the northern end of the New Houses of 

 Parliament is the clock tower, a rectangular structure, rising to a 

 height of 300 feet from the ground, or 326 from the foundation. 

 In the centre of this is a shaft more than 200 feet high, with hori- 

 zontal dimensions of 11 feet in one direction and 84 feet in the other. 

 Up the interior of this shaft was the only passage through which the 

 great bell could be conveyed ; and even then it hail to be laid sidewise, 

 that its dimensions might not exceed those of the shaft. The great 

 clock stands at a height of about 160 feet from the ground, and the 

 great bell about 40 feet higher. The bell-room was arranged with all 

 the necessary apparatus for five bells : the greatest was to weigh about 

 1 4 tons, was to yield the note E, and was to be hung in the centre ; the 

 first quarter bell in one corner, yielding B, and weighing 4J tons (more 

 than St. Paul's great bell) ; the second quarter bell in another corner, 

 with a note EJ, and a weight of 2 tons; the third quarter bell in 

 a third corner, yielding Ft, and having a weight of 1J ton ; and a 

 fourth quarter bell in the remaining corner, with a tone of Git, and a 

 weight of about 1J tons. All the five bells together, with their 

 hammers, were estimated at 30 tons ; the hammer and lever for the 

 largest bell being alone nearly a ton. The harmonies (or rather 

 melodies) of the quarter bells were thus arranged : At a quarter-past 

 the h.mr. ( i: K; E B ; at half-past, EG&FfB, EFGjfE; at three- 

 quarters, GJEKjB, BFSGSE, G3FSEB; and at the hour, EGjEB, 

 EFJG8E, <;:KF;1',, BFIGJE. 



Such was the plan laid down many years ago ; and the actual results 

 deviate only a little from it. The large bell received for a time the 

 familiar apjiellation of Big Ben ; but the new bell bears the more 

 dignified title of St. Stephen. The bell is suspended from a large 

 wrought-iron beam, two tons in weight, which has been tested by seventy 

 tons' strain, without yielding more than one-fifth of an inch. The (first) 

 great bell, designed by Mr. Denison, was (after a long series of disputes 

 among commissioners, architects, and other persons concerned) cast by 

 Messrs. Warner, at a foundry near Stockton-on-Tees, in August, 1856. 

 Tin- mould had been six weeks in preparation ; and there were two 

 furnaces, holding ten tons of metal each. Eighteen tons of metal were 

 poured into the mould, producing a bell about 8 feet high, 9.J feet 

 diameter at mouth, and weighing, when trimmed and adjusted, about 

 15 VHM. Unfortunately, there was some flaw in the metal. The bell 

 wa conveyed to London, placed for a time at the foot of the clock 

 , and struck for a short time 'one day in each week, that the 

 public might hear the beauty of the sound. On one of these occasions 

 the E became a dull and uncertain tone ; the bell was found to be 

 cracked ; and it wan then deemed fortunate that the discovery had 

 been made before the ponderous mass had been raised to its place in 

 the tower. After further discussion and delays, a new bell was cast ; 

 but the casting was in this cane entrusted to Messrs. Mears. The 

 second bell U somewhat lighter than the first, but yields the same 



note. It was raised to its place in October, 1858, and required 

 mechanical appliances of a very complete kind ; for the weight to be 

 raised to a height of 200 feet, comprising bell, cradle, chains, and 

 tackle, was not less than 25 tons, or 56,000 Ibs. An inspection of 

 the fragments of the first great bell, when broken up for recasting, 

 showed that the metal exhibited much " speckiness," and was not in a 

 state of aggregation suitable for the intended purpose. Altogether the 

 cost of the great Westminster bell was not less than 3500?. 



Mr. Denison, at the meeting of the Institution of British Architects 

 above mentioned, gave a list of what he believed to be the largest bells 

 known up to that time ; it was as follows : 



Weight. Diarn. Thick. 



Tons. Feet. Ins. 



Moscow (broken in 1737) . . . 193 21 23 



(fell in 1855) . . . . 63 



Pekin 53 



Novogorod 31 



Vienna (1711) 17f 9-8 



Sens 15 8-6 



Westminster (planned) ... 14 9-2 9 



Erfurt (1497) 13| 8-6 



Notre Dame 12; 8-6 7J 



Montreal (1847) 12} 8'6 8 



Cologne 11 



York (1845) lOf 8'3 8 



Bruges 10 



St. Peter's 8 



Oxford (1680) 7J . 7-1 61 



Antwerp . . . . . . . 7 



Exeter (1675) sf 6-3 5 



Lincoln (1834), 5 6-8 G 



St. Paul's (1709) . . . . 5| 6-7 



Ghent 5 



Boulogne ...... 5 



Old Lincoln (1610) 4J 6-3 



Westminster, 1st quarter bell . . 4| O'l 6 



Other examples, collected by other authorities, are the following : 

 Olmutz, 18 tons ; Breslau, 11 ; Gorlitz, lOf ; Mechlin, 9 ; Halberstadt, 

 ~l\ ; Dantzic, 6. 



BELL COTE, BELL GABLE, or BELL TURRET, in religious 

 edifices a small pierced turret, or open termination of the western gable, 

 in which one or more bells are hung. The bell gable is found in small 

 churches or chapels which have no towers, and is often of very pictu- 

 resque and pleasing form. In some instances it is a good deal enriched, 

 in others nearly plain. Bell gables rarely occur in English churches of 

 the Norman period; but are numerous in those of the 12th, 13th, and 

 14th centuries. In the chapel of St. Nicholas, Glastonbury, occurs a 

 flat bell gable, pierced for two bells, with buttresses at the angles ; and 

 at Shipton Olliffe church, Gloucestershire, is a very good one of the 

 turret form, also for two bells ; these two examples, both of which are 

 of about the middle of the 13th century, are engraved in Parker's 

 ' Glossary of Terms used in Gothic Architecture.' There k an 

 octagonal bell-turret pierced for two bells, of very good form, but of 

 much later date at Corston church, near Bath. When a similar bell- 

 turret occurs at the apex of the eastern gable of the naVe, or over the 

 chancel arch, it was intended to contain the sanctus or mass bell, or 

 the bell which is rung in Roman Catholic churches at the elevation of 

 the host. [BELL.] Several of these turrets still remain, and a few 

 with the bell in them, as at Long Compton, Warwickshire (Parker's 

 'Glossary'). Bell-turrets of this kind are not infrequently met with in 

 French churches of the 18th and 14th centuries, as at Villons, Calvados 

 (De Caumont ; Viollet le Due). 



BELL-METAL. An alloy of copper and tin used for bells, cymbals, 

 gongs, or other sonorous bodies of a similar nature. The proportions 

 usually adopted vary slightly according to the size of the bell to be 

 made ; but they may be stated generally to be 80 parts of copper to 

 20 of tin, or even occasionally 77 parts of copper to 23 of tin. Bell- 

 metal in its natural state, that is to say, in tha state in which it leaves 

 the furnace and has become cool, is brittle ; if, however, it should 

 subsequently be heated, and then suddenly cooled (by dipping it in 

 water containing some salts in solution), instead of becoming harder, 

 it will become very ductile and malleable. The sonority of a mass of 

 bell-metal thus chilled will be increased by a slow process of annealing. 



BELLADONINE. An alkaloid of uncertain composition said to 

 be contained in the leaves and stems of the deadly nightshade. 



BELLATRIX, the name of the smaller of the two bright upper 

 stars in Orion. The three stars of the belt rather incline towards it ; it 

 is of the second magnitude, and is marked y by Rayer, and 24 by 

 Flamsteed. The name (warrior) is indicative of the supposed astrolo- 

 gical properties of the star; the old Arabic name is Al Mirzam al 

 Najid, the valiant lion. [ORION.] 



BELLES LETTRES, a vague term used by the French, which has 

 been adopted by other nations, to signify various branches of know- 

 ledge, which are the produce of the imagination and taste, rather than 

 of serious study and reflection. We do not find that the limits of this 

 description of knowledge have been clearly defined. Rhetoric, poetry, 

 history, philology, are generally understood to come within the defini- 

 tion of belles lettres: but the mathematical and natural sciences, 

 jurisprudence, metaphysics, ethics, and theology, the fine arts, and the 



