Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 3.djvu/553

Rh  2. Petasius, or larger “broad-brimmed ” bell; 3. Codon, orifice of, a hand-bell; 4. Nola (see ante), a very small bell, used in the, according to ; 5. Campana (see ante), a large bell, first used in the in the , in the  ; 6. Squilla, a shrill little bell. We read of cymbalum for the, or campanella for the  ; nolula or dupla in the ; signum in the. There was also a bell called corrigiuncula, to summon the at  time.

We shall now give a brief account of the manufacture of the bell proper, i.e., the bell of the last five centuries. It must not be supposed that the early bell-founders understood all the principles of construction, mixture of s, lines, and proportions which go to form our notion of a good bell. As the or   is the result of innumerable experiments extending over centuries, so the bells of  (1550) and  (1650) disengaged themselves after ages of empirical trials as the true models, and supplied the finished type for all succeeding bell-workers. Bell-metal is a mixture of and in the proportion of 4 to 1. In 's reign it was 2 to 1. In Mr Layard's  bells, it was 10 to 1. and are used in small bells. The thickness of the bell's edge is 1·15th of its, and its height is twelve times its thickness. Bells, like s, have been made of every conceivable shape within certain limits. The long narrow bell, the quadrangular, and the -shaped in at least indicate antiquity, and the graceful curved-inwardly-midway and full -mouthed bell indicates an age not earlier than the 16th century.

The bell is first designed on according to the scale of measurement. Then the crook is made, which is a kind of double en, the legs of which are respectively curved to the shape of the inner and outer sides of the bell, a space of the exact form and thickness of the bell being left betwixt them. The compass is pivotted on a stake driven into the bottom of the casting-pit. A stuffing of work is built round the stake, leaving room for a to be lighted inside it. The outside of this stuffing is then padded with fine soft, well mixed and bound together with , and the inner leg of the compass run round it, bringing it to the exact shape of the inside of the bell. Upon this core, well smeared with, is fashioned the false bell, the outside of which is defined by the outer leg of the compass. Inscriptions are now moulded in on the outside of the -bell; these are carefully smeared with, then lightly covered with the finest , and then with coarser , until a solid mantle is thickened over the outside of the  bell. A is now lighted, and the whole baked hard; the  and  inscriptions steam out through holes at the top, leaving the sham  bell baked hard and tolerably loose, between the core and the cope or mantle. The cope is then lifted, the bell broken up, the cope let down again, enclosing now between itself and the core the exact shape of the bell. The is then boiled, and run molten into the mould. A large bell will take several s to cool. When extricated it ought to be scarcely touched, and should hardly require. This is called its maiden state, and it is one so sought after that many bells are left rough and out of tune in order to claim it.

A good bell, when struck, yields one note, so that any person with an ear for can say what it is. This note is called the consonant, and when it is distinctly heard the bell is said to be “true.” Any bell of moderate size (little bells cannot well be experimented upon) may be tested in the following manner:—Tap the bell just on the curve of the top, and it will yield a note one above the consonant. Tap the bell about one quarter's distance from the top, and it should yield a note which is the quint or fifth of the. Tap it two quarters and a half lower, and it will yield a tierce or third of the. Tap it strongly above the rim where the clapper strikes, and the quint, the tierce, and the octave will now sound simultaneously, yielding the consonant or key-note of the bell. If the tierce is too sharp the bell's note (i.e., the consonant) wavers between a tone and a half-tone above it; if the tierce is flat the note wavers between a tone and a half-tone below it; in either case the bell is said to be “false.” A sharp tierce can be flattened by filing away the inside of the bell just where the tierce is struck; but if the bell when cast is found to have a flat tierce there is no remedy. The consonant or key-note of a bell can be slightly sharpened by cutting away the inner rim of the bell, or flattened by filing it a little higher up inside, just above the rim. (See H. R. Haweis's Music and Morals, 5th edition, p. 429.) The quality of a bell depends not only on the casting and the fineness and mixture of, but upon the due proportion of to the calibre of the bell. The larger the bell the lower the tone; but if we try to make a large E bell with only enough for a smaller F bell, the E bell will be puny and poor. It has been calculated that for a peal of bells to give the pure of the ground tone or key-note, third, fifth, and, the s are required to be as thirty, twenty-four, twenty, fifteen, and the weights as eighty, forty-one, twenty-four, and ten. The of bells is full of romantic interest. In times they have been intimately associated, not only with all kinds of  and social rights, but with almost every important  event. Their influence upon is not less remarkable, for to them indirectly we probably owe all the most famous s in the world. Grose in his Antiquities observes, “s at first scarcely rose above the roof, being intended as s for the admission of, an addition to the height was in all likelihood suggested on the more common use of bells.”

Bells early summoned s to arms, as well as s to or, or to. They sounded the alarm in or tumult; and the rights of the  in their bells were jealously guarded. Thus the chief bell in the often belonged to the, not to the. The, the Carolus, and St Mary's bell in the tower all belong to the ; the rest are the property of the. He who commanded the bell commanded the ; for by that sound, at a moment's notice, he could rally and concentrate his adherents. Hence a conqueror commonly acknowledged the political importance of bells by melting them down; and the of the conquered was in turn melted up to supply the  with bells to be used in the suppression of s. Many a bloody chapter in history has been rung in and out by bells. On the third day of 1282, at the ringing of the, 8000  were d in cold blood by , who had thus planned to free  from. On the 24th of, 's day, 1571, bells ushered in the of the  in , to the number, it is said, of 100,000. Bells have rung alike over slaughtered and ed cities; and far and wide throughout in the hour of victory or irreparable loss. At the news of 's triumph and death at, the bells of rang a merry peal alternated with one deep toll, and similar 