The letters of the inscription are not, as some persons may suppose, cut or engraved on the metal by hand: they are formed in _intaglio_ or sunk in the sand of the mould, and thus appear in relief on the outside of the bell when cast. What can be done in this way by that strange people the {34} Chinese may be seen in the British Museum; we might search long enough to find an English bell equal in elaborate ornamentation to the Chinese bell there deposited. The musical _tone_ of a bell unquestionably depends on the scientific principles of acoustics as applied to music. The pitch of any one bell is determined conjointly by the size and the thickness. Of two bells equally large, the thicker gives the higher note; of two bells equally thick, the smaller gives the higher note. But then bell-founders look to the _quality_ of the tone as well as to the pitch; and on this point there is much divergence of opinion among them. Concerning the metal used, some combination of copper and tin predominates in nearly all church bells; generally from two to three times as much copper as tin. Small additions of other metals are occasionally made, according to the theoretical views of the founder. The popular belief that silver improves the tone of a bell, is pronounced by Mr. Sperling and Mr. Denison to be a mistake; if added in large quantity, it would be as bad as so much lead; if in small quantity, it does neither good nor harm. Whether there is or is not really silver in two well-known bells, called the "Acton Nightingale" and the "Silver Bell" of St John's College, Cambridge, it is believed by these authorities that the sweetness of the tone is due to other causes. A feeling of piety probably influenced the wealthy persons who, in old days, were wont to cast silver into the furnace containing the molten bell-metal. Mr. Sperling thinks that the old bells were, as a rule, better than the modern, by having more substance in them--obtaining depth and fulness of tone by largeness in height and diameter, rather than by diminishing the thickness at the part where the hammer or clapper strikes. "Nothing is more easily starved than a church bell." A long-waisted bell (high in the sides) is considered to give forth a more resonant tone than a shallow or low waist, because there is more metal to act as a kind of sounding-board; but a lower bell is easier to ring in a peal; hence, as Sperling thinks, a reason for the difference in the richness of tone in old and modern bells. There are indications that the old founders sometimes tuned a set of bells in what is called the _minor_ mode, the source of much that is tender and plaintive in Scotch and Irish melodies; but in our days they are always in the _major_ mode. Where the ringing is done by clock-work, the sounds of several bells constitute a _chime_--where by hand, a _peal_--but in either case the actual tone or note of each bell is fixed beforehand. It is by many persons believed that the quality of