A Great American Bell.
To Cincinnati belongs the honor of casting one of the largest of the world's bells. Its weight is about fifteen tons; diameter of rim, nine feet; circumference, nearly thirty feet; diameter of crown, five feet; height, seven feet. Six hundred and forty pounds is the weight of the clapper, and fifteen feet the diameter of the bell's wheel. The bell will be swung on a yoke, to which five silver plates will be attached bearing the history of the bell, together with that of the persons whose medallions adorn it. Among the latter is Joseph O. Buddeke, who bequeathed the sum of $10,000, two-thirds of the cost of this giant bell.
Four designs ornament the bell's outer surface. They are in low Gothic relief. The low Gothic was used because high-relief ornaments are more apt to be broken in the casting, thus marring the tone of a bell. Immediately above the thickest portion of the bell is the Lord's prayer in Latin, inscribed in Gothic characters over half a foot in height. Around the crown are placed the phrases:
"Laudo Deum verum, plebem voco, congrego clerum,
Funera prango, fungere frango, sublata pango."Of these, the latter phrase was the inscription commonly placed on church bells during the Middle Ages. It was usually accompanied by the phrase:
"Excito lentos, dissipo ventos, paco cruentos."
Originally, as will be borne out by their translation, these quaint expressions arose from the belief in the charm of a church bell's sound. Note the different occasions on which bells were, and are to some extent to-day, pealed—at sun down, at bed-time, at a wedding, and at funerals. Of the designs on the bell one is civic, the other ecclesiastical. Above the civic design an American eagle is perched. Below the eagle are the seals of the United States, of Ohio, and of Cincinnati. Around this design are grouped medallions of the donor of the bell and those of the members of his family. Two flags are draped on either side.
On the other side of the bell is the ecclesiastical design. Its parts are arranged similarly to those of the civic design. In place of the eagle there is the Pope's tiara. Under it in order are the medallion of Leo XIII., his seal, and the medallion of Archbishop Elder, the head of the diocese of Cincinnati. The Elder medallion, occupying the central position of this design, is flanked on either side by medallions of Bishop Purcell, Cincinnati's first bishop, and Archbishop Fenwick. The bell is formed of an alloy of copper and tin, in the proportion of seventy-eight to twenty-two. This is given by modern experts as the best proportions of the two metals that can be used in the composition of bell-metal. No silver is used in the alloy; for that, contrary to popular belief, injures the tone of a bell when mixed with the copper and tin.
When finished, the bell will be exhibited, and then hung in the belfry of St. Francis de Sales church. There it is to be one of a peal of twenty-five. The other bells of this peal are yet to be cast. How far our bell will compare in size with the other great bells of the world can be gleaned from the following:
The largest bell ever cast is the great bell of Moscow, now used as the dome of an underground chapel. Its height is nearly 22 feet, and its weight, 193 tons. The next in size is also a Moscowan affair weighing 80 tons. China has a great bell weighing, it is claimed, 60 tons. There is a bell in the cathedral at Montreal weighing 13½ tons. Other famous bells are, "The Great Peter," cast at York, 1843, weighing 10¾ tons; "Great Tom," at Lincoln, 5½ tons; and the great bell of St. Paul's, 5-1/10 tons.
Simon Theodore Stern.
New York City.
The Ancients not so Slow.
I saw in the Table that query from a New York Knight about what the ancients believed concerning the roundness of the world. The error of thinking that the roundness is a modern discovery is common. The word polus is derived from the Greek πὁλος, which means an axis. From this we see that the old Roman philosophers did believe that the world was round. Again, if this Knight had read carefully the First Book of the Aeneid, he would have noticed line 233, which reads,
"Cunctus of Italiam terrarum clauditur orbis."
If the Greeks and Romans did not know that the world was round, how can we account for the expression orbis terrarum which means "the circle of the earth," or simply "the world." Once more, in 46 b.c., Julius Cæsar, who was not only a warrior, but also a profound scholar, divided the year into twelve lunar months. To do this he must have been cognizant of the fact that the world is round. Virgil uses the word polus only as a metonymy for cœlum, which means heaven, or the sky in general. The primitive use of the word may be found in the writings of Ovid and Pliny.
Herbert A. Gibbons.
Philadelphia.