BELL 



676 



BELL 



sugar. Population in 1911, 10,478. See BRITISH 

 HONDURAS. 



BELL. In modern life there is perhaps no 

 sound more familiar than the ringing of a bell. 

 Those who trust to the morning alarm clock 

 may be awakened by the tinkling of a bell; 

 during business hours a bell calls messengers, 



BELLS X 



(a) Ordinary hand bell; (b) modern, of the 

 latest style; (c) brass bell, after an old model; 

 (d) a bell of the period of the Renaissance; (e) 

 church or school bell of the present day. Its 

 parts are named as follows : ( 1 ) Tongue, or 

 clapper; (2) barrel; (3) sound bow; (4) yoke; 

 (5) shoulder. 



and in some cases signals the time to com- 

 mence and to stop work. The deep-sounding 

 bell summons worshippers to church; the "cur- 

 few tolls the knell of parting day." So familiar 

 is a bell that many articles, such as flowers, 

 which would be hard to describe otherwise, are 

 plainly visualized by the expression "bell- 

 shaped." 



Ancient Bells. Before the Christian Era, 

 bells as we know them now probably did not 

 exist. Bars of metal and instruments shaped 

 like cymbals were used for the purposes of 

 announcing meetings. The modern cup-shaped 

 instrument dates from the fourth century, and 

 apparently was first used for the purpose of 

 summoning the devout to worship. That the 

 bell has always been closely associated with 

 religious exercises is shown by its use in the 



pronunciation of excommunication from the 

 Church by bell, book and candle, and by the 

 tolling of bells to announce death. Bells were 

 introduced into France in 550, and into Eng- 

 land about a century later. One of the oldest 

 bells existing in Great Britain is preserved at 

 Belfast, and is known as "the bell of Saint 

 Patrick's will." It is six inches high, five 

 inches broad and four deep, and is thought to 

 date from about 652. 



The original Latin word for bell is campana, 

 from which we derive the modern campanile, 

 meaning bell tower (see CAMPANILE). In the 

 thirteenth century it became customary to 

 make large bells and place them in special 

 towers, where they were sounded by being 

 struck with a metal rod or by being swung 

 so as to be struck by a metal clapper sus- 

 pended within the hollow of the bell. In 1400 

 a notable bell weighing six and one-half tons 

 was made in Paris, and from that time the 

 size of bells increased. 



Famous Bells. The largest bell in the world 

 is the "Tsar Kolokol" of Moscow, weighing 

 193 tons. It was never rung, however, as it 

 was cracked in the making and a piece eleven 

 tons in weight broke off (see illustration). 

 The most famous bell in the United States is 

 the Liberty Bell, which pealed forth the news 

 of the signing of the Declaration of Inde- 

 pendence and the birth of a nation (see LIB- 

 ERTY BELL). "Big Ben," in the Westminster 

 clock tower of the Houses of Parliament in 

 London, weighs thirteen and one-half tons and 

 was made in 1858. It is recorded that on one 

 occasion during its fifty-seven years of staid 

 time-sounding Big Ben boomed forth thirteen 

 strokes at the hour of midnight, and numerous 

 pieces of fiction have centered their plot around 

 the alleged incident. The cathedral of Notre 

 Dame, Montreal, Canada, has a bell weighing 

 fourteen and one-half tons. The great bell of 

 Cologne cathedral, cast from the metal of 

 cannon captured from the French in 1870, 

 weighs twenty-seven and one-half tons. In 

 Burma there is a pagoda with a bell weighing 

 eighty tons. All of these bells of great size 

 and weight are sounded by being struck; they 

 are not movable. 



How Bells Are Made. Ancient bells were 

 made in pieces, riveted together, but it is now 

 customary to mold them in a single piece from 

 molten metal. Bell metal, as it is called, con- 

 sists of a mixture of copper and tin in propor- 

 tions of four parts of copper to one of tin. A 

 mold is made of baked clay, the melted metal 



