Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 7.djvu/128

RV 104 hang the monster bells spoken of above. It is a very simple process. The bell is suspended from a low framework of powerful timbers, the uprights leaning slightly towards cross-beams connecting their upper ends. Slung by ropes or chains in an independent framework is a massive beam which oscillates horizontally, and is adjusted so as to strike full and square on the boss of the bell. These unpretentious belfries make no claim to architectural beauty or structural grandeur. The bell is everything. It hangs fully en évidence, nothing being suffered to dwarf its proportions or interfere with its notes.

The "gong," which alike in name and conception is of purely Chinese origin, was manufactured from a very early date in Japan. Chinese metallurgists understood, and taught the Japanese how to temper and anneal bronze, which, when suddenly cooled from a cherry-red heat, becomes sufficiently soft for easy manipulation, and can afterwards be hardened by reheating and slow cooling. The commonest kind of gong is the well-known discoid, with a rounded central boss; but another form, called the "alligator's mouth" (wani-guchi), is familiar to every temple-goer. It consists of two discoids, strung together so that a wide aperture separates them. A third kind of gong is hemispheroidal,—a bowl of beaten metal, which, instead of being suspended like the wani-guchi or the ordinary gong (dora), is insulated by being placed on a cushion. This variety goes by the name of kin or rin, the former appellation being given to the larger sizes. There is finally the kei, a V-shaped plate of bronze, suspended from the apex. All these, with one exception, are beaten with a short stick having a leather-covered pad at one end. The ex-