Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 3.djvu/555

Rh The following numbers show how three bells can ring six changes:—1, 2, 3; 1, 3, 2; 2, 1, 3; 2, 3, 1; 3, 1, 2; 3, 2, 1. Four bells ring four times as many as three, i.e., twenty-four; five bells ring five times as many as four, or 120. And it may thus be shown that it would take ninety-one s to ring all the changes upon twelve bells at two strokes a second; whilst twenty-four bells would occupy more than 117 billions of s! Bell-ringing is conducted as follows:—s hang through holes in the bell-chamber, and are usually fastened to a for leverage, round which the passes. There is a great knack in handling the. The first half-pull “drops” the bell, the second “sets” it; it next swings up to the slur-bar, then it swings down and up to the other side, the clapper striking as it ascends. Eight bells make the most perfect peal, tuned in the. Bells are struck in three ways,—(1) with a on the outside, let off either by a or revolving, similar in appearance to the prickly  of a, which  can be fitted with s or s by musical nuts or spikes, and altered at will; (2) the bell can also be struck by , as in the common stand of small bells to be seen occasionally in the  s, the player having a  in each hand; or (3) the clapper may strike the bell internally, either being pulled by a , the bell being stationary, or by the bell swinging to and fro. If the or clapper be too light the tone of the bell is not properly drawn; if too heavy it will pulverize or crack the bell in time. Great reforms are needed in the hanging of bells, a subject to which the have given much attention. What Messrs and  are in  with reference to, the s of  are to the ordinary mechanism and hanging of bells. There is hardly a  in  where the hanging of one or more bells, or the oscillation of the, is not justly complained of. When a bell is hard to ring it is usually on account of its hanging. The leverage is wrongly applied; the -work is crowded against the, and many of the finest s have thus become unsafe.

There are a few bells of world-wide renown, and several others more or less celebrated. The great bell at, Kolokol, which, according to the inscription, was cast in 1733, was in the earth 103 years, and was raised by the in 1836. The present bell seems never to have been actually hung or rung, having cracked in the. s of it are now common, as it stands on a raised platform in the middle of a square. It is used as a. It weighs about ; height, 19 3 es;, 60  9 es; thickness, 2 ; weight of broken piece, 11 s. The second  bell, the largest in the world in actual use, weighs 128 s. The great bell at  weighs 53 s; , 22 s; , 17 s;  (1711), 17 s;  (1680), 17 s; , one of the finest bell , 13 s; Great Peter,  Minster, which cost 2000 in 1845, 10 s; , 5 s; Great Tom at , 7 s; Great Tom at , 5 s. Big Ben of the    (cracked) weighs between 13 and 14 s; it was cast by  under the direction of  in 1858. Its four quarters were cast by in 1856. The Kaiserglocke of, lately recast (1875), weighs 25 s. On the varied uses past and present of small bells a volume might be written. s of little bells have been introduced into s and utilized in the. Handringers are still common throughout the country—one man with a bell fitted with a clapper, in each, ringing but two notes of the tune in his turn. Upright stands of bells without clappers, struck with s, may often be seen in the s. Bells for s, s, s,, &c., have already been alluded to. In and elsewhere they are often made of ; these have a very sweet sound, and cost about a. For s and they are of, and worn usually in bunches. A bunch of twelve costs about two s. On the and elsewhere a bell fixed to a floating  marks the spot where s or s are laid for. -s were formerly supplied with small bells to facilitate recovery. Whilst some uses of bells have gone out, new ones have come in. A few instances will give the reader some idea of the indefinite number of services to which they have been applied. The expression to with, bell, and, alludes to an old form of , in which the bell was used to scare the evil —a function also attributed to larger bells. Bearing the bell alludes to the prize of a bell usually given at - to the winner; hence comes what is, after all, only the bell reversed and used as a ing vessel—the prize cup. The -bell no more comes within the scope of the present article than the dome of a mosque. Certain uses of small bells are fast disappearing. The 's bell is now seldom heard. The town-crier, with his “Oh, yes” (oyez, hear ye), has been banished to the provinces. The 5 o'clock, with his -bell to collect letters, went out when the present came in. On the other hand the -bell, the -bell, the -bell, the half-hour bells at, and the -bell survive; whilst new applications, unknown to our forefathers, have been introduced. Few people are aware that -bells worked with wires are scarcely 100 years old. Long before them, no doubt, handbells had to a great extent superseded the use of the, , , clapping of s, and ing on the with a , and fir-ebells were in frequent use. The old bell-pulls, which still linger in country s and s, have been replaced by handles in the s, and these are disappearing from s and s in favour of  bells, now so common in  stations in connection with the. A current of sets a small  in motion, and, in the dark, the stream of sparks between the  and bell is clearly visible. In a word, then, it is plain that the whole of is set to bell music in one shape or another; and although the more important uses of bells have been enumerated, time would fail to mention all their lowly but not less useful functions, such as the familiar -bell, -bell, -bell, -bell, -bell, small portable  spring-bell (pressed with the ),  signal -bell (used in s), safety-bell on swinging coil (fastened to s or s); and, not to forget the, the  and bells, bell-s—which call to mind, and are probably relics of, the old 's cap and bells and fool's  with its  of jingling baubles, or it may be that the fool's baubles are copies of the 's play things. The Rev. H. T. Ellacombe, author of various works on bells, gives in his Chiming a complete catalogue of bell literature. (Author:Hugh Reginald Haweis)  BELL,, a of the  well known for his  efforts in the cause of , and more particularly for his success in extending the monitorial system of instruction in s, was born at  in 1753. He graduated at the of that town, and afterwards spent some years in. In 1789 he was at, and  of  ,. While in this position he occupied himself with instructing the children of the , and having been obliged 