Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 7.djvu/126

RV 102 great Tōdai-ji bell is said to have been made of copper and tin in the proportion of 36 to 1, but the record is probably an approximation only. It is at all events certain that no care was taken to maintain any hard-and-fast ratio of mixture in later times. The casting of a temple bell constituted a species of festival. People thronged from all parts of the parish, carrying offerings, mirrors, and other metal ornaments, which were thrown into the melting-pots without any question as to the nature of the metal composing them. Not infrequently copper coins supplied the chief, if not the only, material. Thus, for a bell cast at Kamakura in the thirteenth century, 330,000 coins were used. Mr. Gowland's analysis of the old copper coins of Japan shows their composition to have been, copper, 77.30; tin, 4.32; lead, 15.33; arsenic, 1.14; antimony, 0.31; iron, 1.01; silver, 0.06; sulphur, 0.52, and gold a trace,—a compound very unlike the ideal bell-metal of the European experts. With regard to dimensions, three of the big bells of Japan give the following figures:—

Tōdai-ji bell,—thickness, one-tenth of diameter; height, 15⅓ times the thickness.

Kyōtō Dai-Butsu bell,—thickness, one-tenth of diameter; height, 15½ times the thickness.

Chion-in bell,—thickness, one-eleventh of diameter; height, 13⅔ times the thickness.

The first two of these bells seem to suggest a definite rule of ratios, but the third upsets the idea altogether, and all depart widely from the principles of the Dutch experts. In section Japanese bells show a shape different from that of European bells. The former have the rim thickened internally, so that the mouth is slightly restricted, and to that construction