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EMBLEMS OF CHRIST.

279

which was originally stipulated for and pronounced
by the clockmakers impossible. One of the assis-
tants at the Royal Observatory stated publicly that
no astronomical clock there goes so well as this.

It can only be seen by special order from the
First Commissioner of Works, as the presence of
an attendant is of course necessary, and the stair-
ease up to it, being ingeniously placed in the only
closed up corner of the tower, is perfectly dark.
The frame is 15} feet long and 43 feet wide from
back to front, and lies on two walls 175 feet high
from the bottom of the tower. All the wheels
except two or three small ones in the escapement
are of cast iron, four of them being 3 feet in
diameter and 2 inches thick, and others about 2
feet in diameter. Each striking part weighs about
a ton, and the dial-works together are a ton and a
half, including the counterpoises of the hands.
Great opposition was made by the clockmakers in

general to the condition that the clock svas to be

made of cast iron; but that material is now used
for many other clocks much smaller than this, and
by the help of the gravity escapement they go far
better than the old-fashioned brass ones, which
cost twice as much.

On the frame is cast the inscription, ‘This clock
was made in the year of our Lord 1854 by
Frederick Dent of the Strand, clockmaker to the
Queen, from the designs of Edmund Beckett
Denison, Q.C., and fixed here in 1859 ;” the tower
not being ready for it until then. It seems sin-
gular that the designing of such a machine should
have been left to a lawyer. But he had been
asked by the Government in 1851, as the author of
the book above-mentioned, to superintend the work
with the Astronomer Royal, who left the manage-
ment of it entirely to him, and soon afterwards
resigned the charge altogether. Soon after the
order was given, both the first Mr. E. J. Dent, and
his suecessor Mr. F. Dent, fell into bad health, and
then Mr. Denison, at their request, undertook the
entire designing and superintendence of the work
from beginning to end.

Messrs. Warner, the bell-founders, also refused
to make a contract for bells of such unusual size,
unless he would take the responsibility of fixing
their dimensions and proportions to produce the
proper notes. A series of experiments was also
made, under his direction, to determine the best
composition of metal for the purpose, which is
stated in the Rudimentary Treatise to be 13 lbs. of
copper to 4 of tin. The first great bell cast by
Messrs. Warner was cracked by trial before it was
taken up, and was found, when broken up, to have
had a large internal flaw in the casting. The
second, cast by Mr. Mears, is also cracked to the
depth of 3 inches, and the defect may be heard in

a certain buzz in the striking. That bell also was

pronounced by Dr. Perey, the Government referee,
after cutting into and analyzing it, to be a porous
and defective casting; but fortunately the crack does
not seem to extend or to go deeper, the metal
inside being softer than at the outside of the bell,
which was in fact the cause of the crack. It ought
to be homogeneous throughout.

The bells have been pronounced shockingly oat
of tune by an amateur musician in the Contem-
porary Review, but they were certified by one of the
first professional musicians in the kingdom “ to be
in perfect tune, except that the largest quarter-bell
is a shade too flat,” which might be amended by
cutting a little off the edge, if it were worth while,
but the error is insignificant.

The summary of the cost of all the work of and
connected with the clock is this :—Clock, 4060/.;
bells, 6000/.; dials, provided by the architect,
and some things connected with them, 53341.; the
wrought iron bell-frame, and things connected there-
with, also provided by the architect, about 6000/ ;
making a total of 22,000/. according to a parliamen-
tary return. The next largest clock in England to
this, and substantially on the same plan, and from
the designs of Mr. Denison, is that of Worcester
Cathedral, made by Mr. Joyce, of Whitchurch. It
strikes the hours on a bell of 43 tons, and the
quarters on the 51 ewt. tenor and three others of
the magnificent peal lately cast and hung there by
Mr. Taylor, of Loughborough. The notes there
are—hour-bell B flat; quarters, D, G, A, B, all
flat. Clocks of the same kind, and with bells nearly
as large, have also been put up within a few years
in the town-halls of Leeds, Preston, Rochdale, and
Bolton. The clocks which strike on the great

| bells of St. Paul’s, Lincoln, Exeter, Canterbury,

Gloucester, and Oxford, are very inferior, old-
fashioned, and feeble. The larger bell of York
Minster, weighing nearly 11 tons, is not struck
by the clock at all, and is a defective casting,
though not so bad’ as Tom of Oxford, nor as the
St, Paul’s bell, which are respectively about 7 and
53 tons. Mr. Denison says those bells might all be
recast into more powerful ones with such a reduc-
tion of weight as to pay their own expenses of re-
casting. The Worcester, Preston, and Leeds bells
are much more powerful, though considerably
lighter.

EMBLEMS OF CHRIST.
THE LIGHT.

Trou art the Light which lighteth every man,
Priest, Levite, Pharisee and Publican ;
The Israelite in whom there is no guile,
And Him whom sin doth most defile ;
- Each, all may see

God’s Light in thee. 135 18h