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LEFT BELIZE 474 BELL He was charged, in 563, with conspiracy against Justinian, but was acquitted. He died in 565. BELIZE, or BRITISH HONDURAS', a British colony, washed on the E. by the Bay of Honduras, in the Caribbean Sea, and elsewhere surrounded by Guate- mala and Mexico. It forms the S. E. part of the peninsula of Yucatan, and measiiring 180 by 60 miles, has an area of 8,592 square miles. The river Belize traverses the middle of the country, and the Rio Hondo and the Sarstoon form respectively its N. W. and its S. boun- dary. The Cockscomb Mountains (4,000 feet) are the highest eminences, the land all along the coast being low and swampy. The country has a general tropical fertility; its chief exports are mahogany and logwood, besides sugar, coffee, cotton, sarsaparilla, bananas, plantains, and india rubber. The early settlers were buccaneers, then logwood cutters, who were frequently attacked by the Spaniards, but since 1798, when they repulsed a fleet and a land force, their occupation has been formally acquiesced in. Since 1862 Belize has ranked as a British colony, with a lieutenant-gover- nor, whose rank was raised, in 1884, to that of governor. Pop. about 42,000. Belize, the capital, is a depot for British goods for Central America. Pop. about 11,000. BELKNAP, GEORGE EUGENE, an American naval officer, born in Newport, N. H., Jan. 22, 1832; was appointed mid- shipman in the navy in 1852; became Lieutenant-Commander in 1862; Com- mander in 1866; Captain in 1872; Com- modore in 1885, and Rear-Admiral in 1889; and was retired in 1894. He took part in the capture of the Barrier Forts on the Canton river, China, in 1856; and in the Civil War was present at the bombardment of the forts and batteries in Charleston harbor, and in both of the attacks on Fort Fisher. In 1873, while engaged in deep sea sounding in the North Pacific Ocean, he made discoveries concerning the topography of the bed of the ocean that found high favor among scientists. He was appointed Superin- tendent of the United States Naval Ob- servatory in 1885, and, among other works, published "Deep Sea Soundings." He died April 7, 1903. BELL, a hollow, sounding instrument of metal. The metal from which bells are usually made (by founding) is an alloy, called bell-metal, commonly com- posed of 80 parts of copper and 20 of tin. The proportion of tin varies, however, from one-third to one-fifth of the weight of the copper, according to the sound re- quired, the size of the bell, and the im- pulse to be given. The depth of the tone of a bell increases in proportion to its size. A bell is divided into the body or barrel, the ear or cannon, and the clap- per or tongue. The lip or sound bow is that part where the bell is struck by the clapper. Bells were used very early in the form of cymbals and hand bells in religious services. They were used in the early monasteries to announce the hours of prayer. Generally they were made of tubes, struck with a hammer. They are said to have been first introduced into Christian churches about 400 A. D., by Paulinus, Bishop of Nola in Campania (whence campana and nola as old names of bells) ; although their adoption on a wide scale does not become apparent until after the year 550, when they were introduced into France. The oldest of those existing in Great Britain and Ire- land, such as the "bell of St. Patrick's well" and St. Ninian's bell, are quad- rangular and made of thin iron plates hammered and riveted together. TTntil the 13th century they were of comparatively small size, but after the casting of the Jacqueline of Paris {6V2 tons) in 1400, their weight rapidly in- creased. Among the more famous bells are the bell of Cologne, 11 tons, 1448; of Danzig, 6 tons, 1453; of Halberstadt, 71/2, 1457; of Rouen, 16, 1501; of Bres- lau, 11, 1507; of Lucerne, IVz, 1636; of Oxford, 71/2, 1680; of Paris, 12 4/5, 1680; of Bruges, 10^:^, 1680; of Vienna. 17%, 1711; of Moscow (the monarch of all bells), 193, 1736; three other bells at Moscow, ranging from 16 to 31 tons, and a fourth of 80 tons, cast in 1819; the bell at Lincoln (Great Tom), bVz, 1834; of York Minster (Great Peter), 10%, 1845; of Montreal, 13 Ya, 1847; of Westminster (Big Ben), 151/2, 1856; (St. Stephen), 131/2, 1858; the great bell of St. Paul's, 171/2, 1882. Others are the bells of Ghent (5), Gorlitz (10%), St. Peter's, Rome (8), Antwerp (7^), 01- miitz (18), Brussels (7), Novgorod (31), Pekin (531/2). See Bell, Liberty. Bells, as the term is used on shipboard, are the strokes of the ship's bell that proclaim the hours. Eight bells, the highest number, are rung at noon and every fourth hour afterward, i. e., at 4, 8, 12 o'clock, and so on. The interme- diary periods are indicated thus: 12:30, 1 bell; 1 o'clock, 2 bells; 1:30, 3 bells, etc., until the eight bells announce 4 o'clock, when the series recommences 4:30, 1 bell; 5 o'clock, 2 bells, etc. The even numbers of strikes thus always an- nounce hours, the odd numbers half hours.