Knoxville journal. [volume] (Knoxville, Iowa) 1874-1986, 1874-11-26
A Night With Big Ben.

AS l PASS over the bridge from the Sur
rey side the great Palace of Westminster
looks like prominent feature of some
dissolving view It's lamps sparkle over
the bright cleaning waters, its windows
glow with soft yellow light, while high
above the din and hustle of the streets
| the face of the clock beams down with a
| dull, warm flush. Parliament is sitting,
and the two great rival lights are on
| their trial up in the lantern. One of
| them is just now blazing out on the
other side, and the summit of the tower,
| as seen behind, is streaming out brilliant
coruscations into the silent darkness.
| Leaving the busy streets make my way
to the foot of the clock tower, enter by
little grated door and commence CROP
ing up a narrow staircase. Everything
about this clock is gigantic. The dials
are twenty-five feet and half across,
and each of them consequently presents
to the world surface of nearly 400
square feet. The figures on them are
two feet long, and the minute spaces a
foot square In going once round the
| face, therefore, each of the minute
| hands traverses distance of sixty feet,
| and in the course of year passes over
nearly 100 miles. Thus, since the clock
was started, about fourteen years ago,
each of these points must have travelled
little less than ], 400 miles not bad IL
lustration of what may be done by stick
ing to business, even though the progress
may be all but imperceptible. During
| the same time the bells within have
given nearly 6,0OO,000 strokes, or have
counted the population of London, one
by one, nearly twice over. The hands
themselves are copper tubes attached to
solid gun-metal stalks" and, together
with the "counterpoises"-th weights
attached to the spindles inside for the
purpose of balancing-each of them
weighs nearly two hundred-weight. Not
withstanding the ponderous weight and
the enormous sweep of these hands,
their regularity is marvellous. Twice
every day the clock reports its progress
to the Royal Observatory at Greenwich by
electricity. There it's rate is checked by the
galvanic motor-clock, which is every
morning regulated by actual observation
of the stars during the night. Any error
in the movements of the great hands at
| Westminster is thus detected, and is tel
egraphed back. These errors are care
fully registered, and, according to the
Astronomer Royal, the clock does not
vary a second in week. The winding,
without the striking part of the mechan-
| ism, occupies twenty minutes. Once
more into the dark stone staircase, and |
| am presently In the belfry, with the
cold stars shimmering through the open
masonry, the tiny lamps twinkling up
| from the world below, and the fretful
wind wailing and rumbling round the
| dark, silent monsters that never give
| mouth but all London knows It, That
huge black mass in the center is Big Ben,
nine feet in diameter, eight inches and
| three-quarters in thickness and between
| fifteen and sixteen tons in weight. The
! hammer that strikes him has cast-iron
head weighing nearly seven hundred
| weight, and around the sullen giant are
| his heralds, the chimes, one of them
weighing seventy eight hundred-weight,
| another thirty-three and a half hundred
weight, a third twenty-six hundred
weight, and fourth twenty-one hundred
weight, and sounding ID, E, f sharp. and
q sharp respectively-the great chieftain
himself booming out terrible bad E.
In striking the quarter, half-hour and
hour the first stroke is usually within
two seconds of Greenwich mean time
Big Ben is expected to begin operations
within one second of true time, and to
enable him to do this the fourth quarter
begins twenty seconds before the hour.
This striking part goes only four days
without winding. The operation is per
formed twice a week and is nearly
| days work. The weights are about ton
and half, and the shaft in which they
move up and down is 174feet deep. The
clock has apendulum weighing upward of
six hundred-weight, and measuring four
teen feet five inches in length. A weird and
ghostly place is this belfry, with its
dense, impenetrabie shadows, and it's
dim, vague lights, the moaning and Sob
bing Of the wind amid the bells, and the
deep, hoarse tick, tick, tick, tick, of its
pendulum. / step out on to the parapet
and shudder as l gaze down through the
gloom and the drifting smoke into the
world seem to have left. The hum of
the busy multitude comes up dulled and
subdued by the distance. Far as the
eye can reach, myriads of lamps dot out
the streets and squares with their spark
ling fires, and through it all the river
rolls black and silent, with here and there
long, tremulous pendants of fire CULVER
ing down from bridge and boat Up now
through the dim, mysterious space i'm
mediately over Big Ben. The spiral
staircase leads to slight gallery or land
ing halfway up, and from this another
coils round into the very center of the
airy. void. Cautiously cropping my way
for am quite alone-and at every step
firmly clutching the iron rail which l
cannot see, / gain the center of the
gloom, and then, just as am least think
ing of it, there is sudden click and
bang, which well-nigh startle me into the
space below. 1t Is the chimes going for
ten O'Clock, and in another instant am
standing holding on to the stair
case, amid wild, discordant up-
roar which, to startled stranger at
least, is rather appalling. There is a
pause now. The reverberations rumble
and roll around the walls for time. and
then comes the mighty Ben, with a thump
which seems TO shake the building to its
very foundations, and which makes nv
frail holding fairly rock to and fro. He
has done at last, and / continue my as
cent, leaving him rumbling and growing
like wild beast.--Leisure Hour.
Winter Decorations