MISCELLANEOUS NOTICES, &c. 
CASTING OF A BELL IN BURMA EL* 
The district of Thayagon, on the site of the late fire, pre¬ 
sented a most animated scene on Thursday last, occ; sioned 
by the casting of a large bell, seven feet high and four and 
a half feet in circumferaence, which is to be placed on the 
pagoda hill. As the Burmese method of casting bells may, 
perhaps, be unknown to most of our local and foreign readers, 
and may be interesting, we shall endeavor to give a descrip¬ 
tion of what we witnessed. On approaching the ground, on 
which was assembled a dense crowd of people of all nations, 
principally Burmans, who had collected to witness this novel 
exhibition, the first thing that met our eye was the bell mould 
itself, placed in a circular cavity in the ground, in a thick 
frame made of wood, and filled up with a thick coating of 
earth, mud, aud bricks to retain the heat. About thirty feet 
from it was a shed, a hundred feet long by thirty wide, in 
which we counted forty furnaces, all containing crucibles 
holding about twenty pounds of metal each. These furnaces 
were supplied with fuel from a large heap of charcoal, which 
although continually diminishing was still kept up by volunta¬ 
ry donations. The bright flames of the fires that sent up their 
myriad sparks and leaped up in variegated colours of green, 
purple, yellow, and red,—from the different kinds of metal that 
each contained,—were kept alive by a row of bellows, of all 
forms and shapes—from the fierce blast of the English leather- 
sides to the asthmatic puff of the Chinese wind-box—which 
were all worked with a will that betokened the labor to be one 
of pleasure. Delicate females in gaudy dresses, jewelled, and 
thetiakaed; old women wrinkled and begrimed with charcoal; 
young men and boys in holiday attire and happy faces; all 
shouting, singing, and working away at the bellows with de¬ 
light, until nearly exhausted, when their places were filled by 
others who were but too happy to have the honor of distin¬ 
guishing themselves in the service of Gaudama. An uninter¬ 
rupted stream of men, women, and children, each with an 
offering either of gold, silver, copper or precious stones, were 
continually feeding the crucibles by casting in their gifts, and 
* From the Maulmaia Chronicle, 17th March 1849. 
Voh III, No, V. May, 1849. 
