Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-05-15
T H E N EW
G. A MP A NILE
By Day Allen Wiley

Oy Lay <AuCu w 1ACy
CTAYING with her father and mother in
~ Venice, little American girl became fond
see the doves fed. One day she came back, hur-
rying into the house as fast as she could run.
This was what she said to her mother:
Everything was quiet and the doves were
having their dinner when l looked up at TIE
big tower. Little puffs of white smoke were
coming out of it. Then looked higher and
saw the great golden angel sinking down. 1t
went faster and faster, until a cloud of some
thing white covered it up-and l ran home to
tell you."
That was the way one of the worlds greatest
towers. one of history's landmarks, fell in a
heap of dust in July nearly eight years ago.
Every boy and girl has read of the famous
Campanile of Saint Marks Cathedral with its
golden angel-as the little girl well called it
and its chime of bells. Reaching three hundred
and twenty three feet into the sky, or more
than half the height of our highest monument
to Washington, for three centuries it had
thrown its shadow over the plaza where the
doves feed-perhaps it stood there before any
doves came to be fed. But the pile was so
high, so massive, that no less than seven hun
bred years passed after laying its foundation
before the angel was placed on top, to be re-
garded by Eenetians with sacred devotion
that has continued to this day. So the fall of
the Campanile was considered public ca
lamity.
When the throngs attracted by the news
gathered round the shapeless heap of white
which had once been SO beautiful, so stately in
its color and proportions, many OF the men and
women sobbed if grieving for the death of a
dear one. They wondered how it could fall,
apparently so solid, so strong. Rumor said it
had been blown up by enemies of the Catholic
Church. Some of the people who believed IN
magic thought its destruction due to the work
of evil magicians. But engineers who studied
,lo<:< a
came to its end merely because of old age.
Mission of the Bells
THE bells of Saint Marks had a mission.
Back in the ages when to the City of the
Isles came ships from all ports of the known
world laden with rich silks, and cloths, ivory,
Spices even gold and jewels, the watchmen in
the tower of the Campanile struck the brazen
tongues to tell the waiting people when treasure
craft was coming into the harbor Up where
war to note the approach of galleys and barges
of hostile nations.
How many times the bells saved Venice
from possible capture and ruin is not known
but it is matter of record that they were re-
garded as the fire bell in the hall of one of
our country towns, to give an alarm of danger.
The bells were sweetly toned and rang in such
harmony that in morning and evening es-
pecally, the Venetians would bare their heads
and listen in reverence.
mat Is why announcer great eul1Ce Is SLOWLY
but surely rising at the same site, another Cam
panile of the same height, the same shape, the
same proportions. The construction of the
original Campanile great feat of human
genius and ability; but the present work is
equally interesting and important. When
complete no less than twenty thousand tons of
concrete, stone, and brick will be contained in
it, and all this on base less than fifty feet
square.
The great city. with its stone and marble gal
leries, palaces, churches, even its streets where
the canal does not afford communicat ton, is
actually built over the Adriatic Sea. 1t rests
thick cushion or bed of compact clay, into
which the foundation piles driven. This
cushion rests on a deep stratum of watery sand.
The clay bed varies in thickness from eighteen
to twenty-four feet in different parts of the
town.
Think of trying to build tower over three
hundred feet high on foundation so narrow that
boy could walk across it in dozen steps, yet
not piece of stone rock in it, and below the
sand and clay the waters of the sea- Yet the
men of Italy are so building another Cam
panile, and they work along lines very similar
to the way in which their ancestors worked.
They began the task far below the surface of
the streets; so they carefully examined the ma
terial of which this natural sponge was COM
posed, also the supports that upheld the old
tower. These supports were merely wooden
piles driven into the clay. Long as they had
been there, they were sound and we'll preserved.
On top of the piles was a platform composed