The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1902-11-10
USES OF THE
SHIPS BELL
THE VARIOUS USES OF THE SAIL
ORs CLOCK-Is CHURCH BELL
AND CHRONOMETER.

Eight bells" does not mean that
ship has that number of bells, but it is
a nautical term for the hour The nau-
teal day begins and ends at noon, when
eight bells" is struck, as it is also at
o'clock, s o'clock and at midnight The
bell is struck half-hourly, one stroke
being added for each half-hour, again.
And If one is asked the time on board a
navy ship the response would be so
many bells, not the hour. The bell is Of
ordinary size only, but it has a sharp
tone, and is hung just forward or abafr
the foremost. The captains orderly
usually watches the clock, and reports
to the officer of the deck what nour L
is or number of bells, who then orders
the bell struck. But at o'clock in the
morning this rule is varied the orderly
reporting to the officer of tle aci5.
Eight bells, sir!" when the officer re-
plies; Report to the captain aiglt bells
and chronometer wound"
At noon the Eight bells is not struck
until the navigator has CORE atel the
clock, either by his MONDAY sight for
position of the ship when at seL IL from
his chronometer. If with a feet or at a
naval station, the bell must not be
struck until that of the senior Officer
sounds, and the messenger stands by
the bell with clapper in hand, and as
soon as the flag officers bell begins -
strike the bells on the other vessels are
struck. When there is a large ilect ~
ing close together the effect is interest
ing and agreeable and one might ina
CINE that chimes were being rdng.
Every navy in the world except Eng
land follows the same custom, and Eng
land only varies at the dog watch"
from to o'clock in the evening. In
ho hoI
hour till o'clock, and then al $50 one
bell is struck and so on to three bells
at 1880 o'clock; but eight bells are
sounded at o'clock. Tradition gives
this reason for this custom: Before the
British naval mutinies of 1897 the bells
of the ships were struck as in other ma
Vies, but in one of those mutinies the
signal agreed upon by the mutineers
was the stroke of five bells (6;3O p. ND J,
and at that hour the mutineers rose to
Stay their officers. Then, when order
was restored throughout the navy, the
dog-watch system of bells was adopt
ed to allay superstition.
But the ships bell has other duties
than that of keeping the time. 1t tolls
on Sunday mornings for the services of
the chaplain or his substitute; also to
call "All hands to bury the dead" and
it is fire signal, when it is rung vigo-
fously, and then the ships crew take
the positions to which they have been
assigned on the first day each has been
detailed to the ship. The bell is not
used as fire signal in an engagement,
however, for the reason that the crew
might become panic-stricken and dis
tracted from the fight; in such cases
the fire is reported to the captain, and
he dispatches an officer with men to ex-
tinguish 1t. The bell is also used in a
fog, and when the ship is at anchor it is
struck in threes, with a short interval
between each set of strokes. In the
use of the bell for these several pur-
poses no confusion is caused. The half
hour signals are struck in pairs, with a
couple of seconds between each, and if
an odd number is to be sounded the
single stroke comes last. The tolling
for church is by slow process, while
those for fog are in sets of three, and
for fire they follow each other with
great rapidity.-New York Tribune.