These beautiful examples of _al fresco_ music, which have been hitherto chiefly identified with Belgium, are now being produced in England with perhaps even more pleasing and satisfactory musical effect. Carillons attached to Church or Turret Clocks are being set up in various churches and mansions in different parts of the kingdom, and it is not improbable that the taste for such chimes may grow with the opportunity for hearing them. As in musical clocks, the works for time-keeping and those for chiming are entirely distinct, with the exception of the means by which the clock at certain fixed intervals lets off the chiming machinery after the striking is done. Chimes were much more popular years ago than they have been until lately. The old-fashioned machinery used to be rude enough, consisting chiefly of a large wooden barrel, stuck, like that of a musical box, with pins. These pins pulled the hammers that struck upon the bells, and the time was regulated by a rope coiled round one end of the barrel driving two or three wheels connected with a fly-wheel. More recent inventions have improved upon these conditions. The barrel is sometimes of cast-iron instead of wood, with steel or brass pins fixed in it to lift the hammers, and a very heavy weight is necessary to give the motive power. Instead of the ordinary method of raising the hammers and letting them fall by means of the pins on a chime barrel, the hammers are immediately after use returned to their places in striking position ready to be liberated by the pins on the chime barrel, and upon being so liberated are prepared to strike again. The tunes to be played upon these bells will of course be such as are adapted to the particular number of bells in each case, and the cost of the entire chimes depends upon the number and sizes of the bells so used,--varying with the circumstances,--the size and capacity of the tower, and the difficulties to be overcome in providing accommodation for the necessary bells, weights, chime barrel, &c. In each instance, as with turret clocks, the cost of the whole works depends to a great extent upon the cost of fixing the machinery. The tones of the bells have to be carefully provided for, as also the best position in which they can be heard at a distance. With fourteen bells of different sizes almost any tune can be played.