The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1889-08-24
SOME LARGE BELLS.
Ono That Weighs 433,OOO Pounds, and
/ Others of Considerable Size.

Ono That Weighs 433,OOO Pounds, and
4 Others Of Considerable Size.
For 900 years after the Bishop o.
Nola first set up his church bell In
Campania no attempts were made al
casting large ones. The bell presented
to the church at Orleans in the eleventh
century weighed but 1900 pounds,
being then the largest in the world.
In the thirteenth century bells Of one.
two and three tons weight were no,
rare. In the year 140O the Jacqueline
Ywns cast at Paris, the first of the great
bells, weighing, without the hammer.
$1,000 pounds, or seven and one-half
tons.
The rage for big bells soon became
n passion. Seventy-two years later
Paris almost doubled her first effort in
the big bell line by casting one Of
twelve and a half tons. The bell OF
Rouen was cast in 1901. 1t weighed
36, 364 pounds.
The largest bell in the world at the
present time, or that ever has been, is
the famous King of Bells, now at Mos
COW, Russia. 1t was cast in the year
1882, partly from fragments of another
great bell called the Giant, which was
broken in the early part of the Seven
teenth century by falling from its sup
port.
The Giant, although not rs large as
the one of which its fragments now
form n part, was, nevertheless, no
pigmy. as the reader my infer upon
being informed that its weight was
not less than 2SS,00 pounds! 1t is
said to have taken the combined
strength of twenty-four men to ring
the Giant in his palmy days. The
King of Bells, like the Giant, has had
the misfortune to get broke. Five
years after it was cast, in 1887, during
a great fire. a heavy timber fell against
the King and broke an immense three
cornered piece from its side. leaving a
gap wide enough to admit two men
walking abreast. It is now on the
ground and is said to have been used
about ten years ago as place of wor-
ship, the gap in the side serving as q
means OF ingress and egress. The wri-
ter Is aware that this sounds like
fairy story, but surely there is nothing
about it in the least improbable, mas
much as the monster is 10 feet inches
in height and 60 feet inches around
the margin! The weight of the colos-
sal folly has been variously given, but
never less than $4,000 pounds!
Think of it, 220 tons. BY some gross
several hundred pounds
of gold were said to have been incor-
porated in its composition. Russia
leads the world in the matter of great
bells, Moscow also claiming second
place in the worlds championship in
its st. Ivan's which weighs 1877 $50
pounds. 1t is 16 inches in thickness.
and 4C feet inches in circumference.
China has several large bells, for,
according to Father lie Compte. Pel1in
has seven bells, each OF which weighs
120, 600 pounds.
The great bell at Vienna, Austria.
weighs 40,200 pounds. The largest
bell in Bohemia, that at Olmutz,
weighs exactly 10000 pounds. "Big
Bcn," the pride of London, would look
like farmhouse dinner bell compared
with the monster of Moscow above |
weighing but fifteen tons.
Big Ben" is not the largest bell of
London, however, st. Paul's Cathedral
having one which weighs 3S,47O
pounds. The largest bell on that won
lerful piece OF architecture, st. Peters
Cathedral at Rome, weighs but 1S. 600
pounds; hardly two-thirds the size of
he largest bell in America, that at
which weighs 2S, $50. John
". Wright, in st. Louis Republic.