Text: 1) Musical instruments of percussion (bells) consisting of a series of metal basins or cups, the outline of which has from time to time been modified. The materials of which bells are usually made are copper and tin, the proportions varying in several countries and even among manufacturers. 2) The tuning is effected by means of a lathe and some simple machinery. If the bell requires sharpening, the diameter is lessened in proportion to its substance, if it is too sharp, the sound-bow is thinned by the same means; but, as a rule, bells are now so accurately cast, that little if any tuning is necessary after the bell leaves the mould. It is stated in "Knight's Encyclopaedia", 1854), that the German bell-founders made the various dimensions of the bell to bear certain ratios to each other. The thickest part where the hammer strikes is called the "Sound Bow". If this thickest be called one, then the diameter of the mouth equals 15, the diamter of the top or shoulder 7 1/2, the height equals 12, and the weight of the clapper 1/40 of the weight of the bell. Denison recommends that the sound bow of the three or four larger bells of a peal should be of the thickness of a thirteenth of the diameter, and that the smaller bells may gradually increase in thickness up to the twelfth in a peal of six, the eleventh in a peal of eight, and to the tenth in a peal of ten or twelve, greater thickness impeding the freedom of the sound. The relative diameters of a peal of eight tunable bells should be according to the following proportion: 60, 53 1/2, 48, 45, 40, 36, 32, 30. The relative weights being generally in the proportion: 100, 70.23, 51.2, 42.2, 29.63, 21.6, 15.18, 12.5.

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Source: 125