A bell is a hollow, somewhat cup-shaped, sounding instrument of metal. The metal from which bells are usually made (by founding) is an alloy, called bell-metal, commonly composed of eighty parts of copper and twenty of tin. The proportion of tin varies, however, from one-third to one-fifth of the weight of the copper, according to the sound required, the size of the bell, and the impulse to be given. The clearness and richness of the tone depend upon the metal used, the perfection of its casting, and also upon its shape; it having been shown by a number of experiments that the well-known shape with a thick lip is the best adapted to give a perfect sound. The depth of the tone of a bell increases in proportion to its size.
A bell is divided into the body or barrel, the ear or cannon, and the clapper or tongue. The lip or sound-bow is that part where the bell is struck by the clapper. It is uncertain whether the jangling instruments used by the Egyptians and Israelites can be correctly described as bells; but it is certain that bells of a considerable size were in early use in China and Japan, and that the Greeks and Romans used them for various purposes. They are said to have been first introduced into Christian churches about 400 AD by Paulinus, bishop of Nola, in Campania (whence campana and nola as old names of bells); although their adoption on a wide scale does not become apparent until after the year 550, when they were introduced into France.
Benedict Biscop, abbot of Wearmouth, seems to have imported bells from Italy to England in 680, but their use in Ireland and Scotland is probably of earlier date. The oldest of those existing in Great Britain and Ireland, such as the 'bell of St. Patrick's will' and St Ninian's bell, are quadrangular and made of thin iron plates hammered and riveted together.
Until the thirteenth century bells were of comparatively small size, but after the casting of the Jacqueline of Paris (6.5 tons) in 1400 their weight rapidly increased. Among the more famous bells are the bell of Cologne, 11. tons, 1448; of Dantzic, 6 tons, 1453; of Halberstadt, 7.5, 1457; of Rouen, 16, 1501; of Breslau, 11, 1507; of Lucerne, 71, 1636; of Oxford,7.5 1680; of Paris, 12.8, 1680; of Bruges, 10.5, 1680; of Vienna, 17.75, 1711; of Moscow (the monarch of all bells), 193, 1736; three other bells at Moscow ranging from 16 to 31 tons, and a fourth of 80 tons cast in 1819; the bell of Lincoln (Great Tom), 5.5, 1834; of YorkMinster (Great Peter), 10.75, 1845; of Montreal, 134, 1847; of Westminster (Big Ben), 15.5, 1856, (St Stephen), 13.5, 1858; the Great Bell of St. Paul's, 17.5, 1882. Others are the bells of Ghent (5 tons), Gorlitz (10.75 tons), St Peter's, Rome (8 tons), Antwerp (7.25 tons), Olmutz (18 tons), Sacred Heart, Paris (27 tons), Novgorod (31 tons), Pekin (53.5 tons).
Besides their use in churches bells are employed for various purposes, formerly the most common use being to summon attendants or domestics in private houses, hotels, etc. Bells for this purpose were of small size and may be held in the hand and rung, but most commonly were rung by means of wires stretched from the various apartments to the place where the bells were hung. Bells rung by electricity became common in hotels and other establishments around 1905.
A casting-vote is the vote of a presiding officer in an assembly or council which decides a question when the votes of the assembly or house are equally divided between the affirmative and negative. Research Casting-Vote
In America in 1827 a high tariff bill, known as the Woollen Bill, was introduced into Congress by Clay and his adherents. It passed the House, but was defeated in the Senate by the casting vote of the Vice-President. Accordingly the protectionist faction, in 1828, called a convention at Harrisburg. The delegates were chiefly from New England and the Middle States. The Harrisburg convention presented the cause of protection to the people, and decided to seek an increased duty, not only on woollens, but on other specified articles of manufacture. This resulted in the passage of the high tariff bill of 1828. Research Harrisburg Convention
Star Trek was an American science fiction drama series created by Gene Roddenberry during the late 1960s. It was intended to be a 'Western set in space' and won acclaim for its controversial casting of a black actress in a senior crew position, and the casting of a multi-national crew. It also featured the first multi-racial kiss on American television - between a black lady and a white man. Research Star Trek
A caterpillar is the larval stage of a butterfly or moth. Wormlike in form, the body is segmented, may be hairy, and often has scent glands. The head has strong biting mandibles, silk glands, and a spinneret. Many caterpillars resemble the plant on which they feed, dry twigs, or rolled leaves. Others are highly coloured and rely for their protection on their irritant hairs, disagreeable smell, or on their power to eject a corrosive fluid. Yet others take up a 'threat attitude' when attacked. Caterpillars emerge from eggs that have been laid by the female insect on the food plant and feed greedily, increasing greatly in size and casting their skins several times, until the pupal stage is reached. The abdominal segments bear a varying number of ' pro-legs' as well as the six true legs on the thoracic segments. Research Caterpillar
Fly is the term for a winged insect of various genera and species, whose distinguishing characteristics are that the wings are transparent and have no cases or covers. By these marks flies are distinguished from beetles, butterflies, grasshoppers, etc
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The true flies or Diptera have only two wings, the anterior pair. In common language, fly is the house-fly, of the genus Musca. The house-fly is found wherever man is, and in hot weather causes a good deal of annoyance. It is furnished with a suctorial proboscis, from which, when feeding on dry substances, it exudes a liquid, which, by moistening them, fits them to be sucked. From its feet being beset with hairs, each terminating in a disc which is supposed to act as a sucker, it can walk on smooth surfaces, as a ceiling, even with its back down. The female lays her eggs in dung or refuse; the larvas are small white worms (mahhots). They change into pupae without casting their skins, and in from eight to fourteen days the perfect fly emerges. The very small flies and the very large ones often seen about houses belong to other species. Research Fly
George Clinton was an American politician and soldier. He was born in 1739 at Little Britain, New York and died in 1812. He was a soldier in the French and Indian War and a member of the New York Assembly; in the first part of the Revolution he was for a short time member of the Continental Congress, and then served in the field. As a brigadier-general he defended unsuccessfully the Highland forts against the British in 1777. For the long period of 1777 until 1795 he was Governor of the State of New York, and threw his great influence against the ratification of the Federal Constitution. Thereafter he was an Anti-Federalist and Republican leader. He received a few votes for Vice-president in 1789, fifty votes for Vice-president in 1792 and several in 1796. He was again Governor in 1801 until 1804, and was elected Vice-president in 1804, serving as such, under Jefferson and Madison, until his death. In 1811 he gave the casting vote against the US Bank. Research George Clinton
George Mifflin Dallas was an American politician. He was born in 1792 and died in 1864. He was Vice-President of the United States, had a training in diplomacy and law, was mayor of Philadelphia, and district attorney. From 1831 to 1833 he was US Senator from Pennsylvania, and was Attorney-General of the State in the two succeeding years. From 1837 until 1939 he was US Minister to Russia. When Polk was nominated by the Democrats in 1844, Dallas received the second honour, as a kind of protectionist gift to hold Pennsylvania. They were elected, and Dallas served as Vice-President from 1845 until 1849. In spite of his supposed protectionist leanings Dallas gave the casting vote in the Senate in favour of the Walker Tariff of 1846. His last public office was that of Minister to England from 1856 until 1861. Research George Dallas
Lorenzo Ghiberti was a Florentine sculptor. He was born in 1378 and died in 1455. He learned from his stepfather Bartoluccio, an expert goldsmith, the arts of drawing and modelling, and that of casting metals at a young age. He was engaged in painting frescoes at Rimini, in the palace of Pandolfo Malatesta, when the priori of the society of merchants at Florence invited artists to propose models for one of the bronze doors of the baptistery of San Giovanni. The judges selected the works of Donatello and Lorenzo Ghiberti as the best (according to Vasari, also that of Brunelleschi, who is not mentioned by Lorenzo Ghiberti himself as one of the competitors); but the former voluntarily withdrew his claims, giving the preference to Lorenzo Ghiberti. After twenty-one years' labour Lorenzo Ghiberti completed the door, and, at the request of the priori, executed a second, after almost as long a period. Michael Angelo said of these, that they were worthy of adorning the entrance to paradise. During these forty years Lorenzo Ghiberti also completed other works, bas-reliefs, statues, and some excellent paintings on glass, most of which may be seen in the cathedral and the church of Or San Michele at Florence. Research Lorenzo Ghiberti
Marie Antoinette was Archduchess of Austria and Queen of Louis XVI of France. She was born in 1755 and died in 1793 when she was executed for treason during the French revolution. The youngest daughter of the Emperor Francis I and of Maria Theresa she was married at the age of fifteen to the Dauphin, afterwards Louis XVI, but her manners were ill-suited to the French court, and she made many enemies among the highest families by her contempt for its ceremonies, which excited her ridicule. The freedom of her manners, indeed, even after she became queen, was a cause of scandal. The extraordinary affair of the diamond necklace, in which the CardinalLouis de Holian, the great quack Cagliostro, and a certain Countess de Lamotte were the chief actors, tarnished her name, and added force to the calumnies against her. Though it was proved in the examination which she demanded that she had never ordered the necklace, her enemies succeeded in casting a stigma on her, and the credulous people laid every public disaster to her charge.
There is no doubt she had great influence over the king, and that she constantly opposed all measures of reform. The enthusiastic reception given her at the guards' ball at Versailles on the 1st of October, 1789, raised the general indignation to the highest pitch, and was followed in a few days by the insurrection of women, and the attack on Versailles.
When practically prisoners in the Tuileries it was she who advised the flight of the royal family in June, 1791, which ended in their capture and return. On the 10th of August, 1792, she heard her husband's deposition pronounced by the Legislative Assembly, and accompanied him to the prison in the Temple, where she displayed the magnanimity of a heroine and the patient endurance of a martyr. In January, 1793, she parted with her husband who had been condemned by the Convention; in August she was removed to the Conciergerie; and in October she was charged before the revolutionary tribunal with having dissipated the finances, exhausted the treasury, corresponded with the foreign enemies of France, and favoured the domestic foes of the country. She defended herself with firmness, decision, and indignation; and heard the sentence of death pronounced with perfect calmness - a calmness which did not forsake her when the sentence was carried out the following morning. Her son, eight years of age, died shortly afterwards, as was generally believed by poison, and her daughter was suffered to quit France, and afterwards married her cousin the Duke of Angouleme.
Marie Antoinette was renowned for rarely carrying money with her, and rather borrowing money from her associates for which she earned the nickname 'Madame Deficit'. Research Marie Antoinette
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Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Casting-Vote
