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National Geographic : 1925 Mar
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368 THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC fAGAZIXE Photograph from 'William Gorham Rice BELLS AND HAMMERS IN AUTOMATIC PLAY: ANTWERP From two to five or six ha'mmers are used on each bell for the automatic play. These hammers are connected with the great barrel, which is stopped and started by the clock mechanism (see page 364). More than one hammer is used, so that a quick repetition of a note may occur where needed in the melody. The hammers are connected by wires and rods with the levers, which are tripped by the arranged pins on the barrel. There are springs behind each hammer, which hold it when at rest a quarter to a half inch from the outside sound bow of the bell. This secures a clear staccato stroke each time the hammer falls. The tongues, which are used in keyboard play, also are seen about opposite the hammers (see also illustration, page 366). Only copper and block tin, in the pro- portion of three parts of copper to one of tin, were used in making ancient bells, and the same practice prevails among the best bell founders to-day. From which it may well be concluded that the "golden molten" bells of Poe, the "heart-of-iron" hells of Longfellow, and the "silvery" bells of other writers are solely poetic license. 1,5°0 'rUNING FORKS BRING BE:LLS INTO ACCURATE: TUNE In one foreign bell foundry the equip- ment consists in part of 1,5°0 tuning forks. There bells are brought into as accurate tune as is a piano. Properly made bells, once in tune, remain so al- ways. It is half a day's journey from The Hague to that part of the Singing Tower region far in the northeast of the eth- erlands, where purple heather and hills abound. Groningen, not far from the seacoa t, in these higher lands, merits a visit. Here, high up in the tower of St. ::\f ar- tin's Church, we saw one of the finest of carillons. When we were there a city watchman, as had been the custom for centuries past, spent the night in this tower. Immedi- ately following the ripple of the bells every quarter of an hour, he appeared successively on each of the lofty minia- ture balconies that face each point of the compass. After all was serene in the sleeping town below, he sent out to north, south, east, and west a faint trumpet strain. And what more restful reminder that "All is well" can be conceived; or what more frugal scheme to let the tax-
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