BELL'-RINGING. The ringing of bells in changes of regular peals is largely a European practice. It was early brought to a high degree of proficiency in the Netherlands. In some of the church-towers there the striking. chiming, and playing of bells is incessant, including the playing of regular tunes. in some instances, for this latter purpose, the bells are sounded by means of a cylinder, on the principle of a barrel organ; in others they are played with keys by a musician. The ringing of bells has also become a distinct art in Great Britain. According to the English method the bell at each pull revolves round a complete circle, and is under the full •ommand of the ringer. The first known writer on the subject is the author of a hook called Th11111111( logia ( 1668), said by some to have been Fabian Stedman, a Cambridge printer, who printed his changes on slips of paper in a notation of his own invention, and taught them to his company in the tower of Sahit Benedict's Church, Cambridge. According to his account there was no idea of change-ring ing until the beginning of the Seventeenth Cen tury, though there certainly seem to he traces of it in the earliest English comedy, Udall's Ralph Roister Mister (1553). The art made rapid progress, and rings of bells increased from five or six to ten or twelve, the latter being the greatest number ever rung in peal. The variety of changes increases enormously with the increase in the number of bells. Six changes can be rung on three bells: on four, four times as many; and so on until with twelve bells the enormous num ber of 479,001,000 different changes can be rung.
Bell-ringing has an interesting system of no menclature. The simplest peals are those called yrandsire on an odd number of bells. and bob on an even number. Changes on three bells are called rounds; on four, changes or singles; on five, doubles or grandsires; on six, bobs minor; on seven, grandsire triples; on eight, bobs ma jor; on nine. grandsire eaters; on ten, bobs royal; on eleven. grandsire cinaues; on twelve, bobs maximns. A bell is set when its mouth is turned upwards; at hand stroke when set up so far that only the tuffing or sallic is held by the ringer: at backstroke when rung so far round that the end of the rope is held. The treble bell
is the highest, the tenor the lowest of a set. Five thousand changes are a peal ; any smaller number constitutes a touch or flourish—i.e. a practice rather than a performance.
It may be interesting to note here that the old-fashioned bell-ringer has been banished from one of the most notable church-chimes in Amer ica by those most modern of methods of power transmission, electricity and compressed air. The chimes of Saint Patrick's Cathedral in New York City consist of 19 bells, weighing from 270 pounds to 6000 pounds, and having a musical range from lower C to upper D, with the accom panying sharps and flats. These chimes were first played on January 1, 1901, from a. key board in the sacristy, by means of a combination of electricity and compressed air, devised and constructed by Air. H. C. Champ, of Brooklyn, N. Y. The apparatus is described by The En gineer as follows: It is an adaptation of the compressed-air cylinder adopted by the Union Switch and Signal Company. Mr. Champ, in following their idea, constructed 19 bell-engines, corresponding to the number of bells. These bell engines are bolted to wooden seats, which in turn are bolted on a system of steel beams in serted in the walls of the north tower. These engines consist in their working parts of a fine grade of bronze composition metal, so as not to rust or corrode. The engines practically consist of three main parts, two cylinders and a piston, which is fitted to a clip hung on the clapper of the bell above it. (in the engine there is an adjustable elevis, so that the stroke can be arranged to a nicety, and once so adjusted it cannot change its position. The engines are operated from the sacristy by means of a key board. A key being depressed. a current of elec tricity is sent along its wire to the belfry, where, by means of an air-valve operated through an eleetro-magnet. the compressed air is admitted to the bell-engine. and the air-pressure delivers the blow, which acts upon the clapper and rings the bell." Consult: Lomax, Bells and Bellringers (London, 1879) ; Ellacombe. Practical Remarks on Belfries and Ringers (London, 1859-60). See BELL.