The song of the bell and other poems Author:Friedrich Schiller Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: NOTES. P. 13. N. 1. Vivas voco: Mortuos plango. Fulgura frango. " I call the living, weep the dead, and break the lightning." This motto is put here gen... more »erally as an Inscription for a Bell; as is, or at all events was, usual in former times, commonly in much the same words as the above. In Weever's work on Funereal monuments. Cap. 15. P. 122. are given several instances of such. The first two sentences of the above one are obvious enough. As to the third—it seems that it was usual in early times to ring the Church Bell in thunder storms; under the idea that the sound, by causing a percussion of the air, dissipated or " broke" the electric fluid, so as to present its explosion in lightning ; as also to call the People to Church, to divert by prayer the threatened mischief of the storm. P. 31. N. 2. Some explanation of the technical terms here used may be desirable. The process of casting a Bell is very simple. A Furnace is erected on the level of the floor, wherein to melt the metal—Copper or Brass, with a proportion—about a fifth—of Tin, and a small admixture of powdered charcoal to promote the fusion. Silver also was formerly thought to be necessary for the purpose, and was duly asked for—and in no small quantitles—by pious collectors : but some how it used to find its way to other places than the Furnace, till at last it was discovered not to be indispensi- ble to the amalgam. A hole or pit is dug by the Furnace, of a depth corresponding to the size of the Bell intended to be cast, only sufficiently deep for its uppermost part to be below the level of the Furnace floor. In that is placed the Mould. This consists of a centre called the Core, which is convexly of just the interior shape intended for the Bell; with an outer covering for this called the Cope, in its co...« less