[Sca-cooks] Bells and their Casting was Cast Iron pots??

[Daniel Phelps]

Was written:

Well, they did repair or redo the Liberty Bell. It then cracked
again, later. However, I believe the Liberty Bell, and I imagine most
bells, is cast of brass, not iron. I think iron would have a horrible
tonal quality compared to brass.

Bronze not brass is what was then used in bell casting.  The entry in Volume
1 of my EB printed MDCCLXXI:

"Bell, a well known machine, ranked by muficians among the mufical
inftruments of percuffion.

The metal of which is made, is a compofition of tin and copper, or pewter
and copper,; the proportion of one to the other is almoft twenty pounds of
pewter, or twenty-three pounds of tin, to one hundred weight of copper.

Bell-metal is prohibited to be imported, as are hawk-bells."

There is a multi page entry on foundery or foundry with two pages on that of
bells in Volume II.

It is interesting that no mention of zinc is made under the bell entry but
under chemistry's subentry "of Tin" in volume II is:

"If, on the contrary, to one part of tin ten parts of copper be added,
together with a little zinc, a femi-metal to be considered hereafter, fro
this combination there refults a metallic compound, which is hard, brittle,
and very fonorous; that is used for cafting bells: This compofition is
called bronze and bell-metal."

Daniel