On Top Of A Great Clock

[xenith]

ON THE TOP OF A GREAT CLOCK.

ULYSSES VISITS "BIG BEN."

"ULYSSES, you must climb Big Ben." Such was the brief but unmistakable message, boys, which I received from your discriminating editor a few days ago.

I confess it set me thinking--tingling. Often had I seen what is familiarly styled "Big Ben." In my nocturnal rambles along the river's banks in search of subjects for story and narrative, my eyes had frequently lifted themselves to its great moons of faces. Many a shudder, too, has passed over me as I contemplated the tremendous issues and awful consequences turning upon every movement of the slow yet fleeting hands of the great timepiece. I had watched its stern face at dead of night, at rise of sun, in broad day- light, and at setting sun; but then I was far off on terra firma below. The idea of climbing the mass of solid masonry--thirty-five feet square, of peering into the face of the giant measurer of Chronos, was a new sensation. What would the face say to me?


Winding


Ulysses little fears danger, but the thought of climbing this tremendous tower, 300 feet high, and with its belfry spire twenty feet more, certainly presented some errors even to him.

In a search after "Big Ben" from the inside (which I selected), it is first necessary to obtain an order from the First Commissioner of Works. Then one must be stout of limb, and have good wind-chests, to do the big bell. Ulysses is so blessed. So, accompanied by the janitor with lamps and keys, we passed through the door at the foot of "Ben's" tower. I looked up. It was an immense height of an apparently endless winding staircase. Far, far off, could just be distinguished a dim light coming in from the crannies. This was the top, leading to the clock-room.

The ascent began--with the mournful prospect of having to mount 600 steps and more ere I could set hands, or eyes, upon the famous Westminster clock, or the now notorious sample of the bell-founder's art which has been sounding the time for all London ever since Messrs. Mears cast it in 1858. It is slow work, and right welcome are the occasional stoppages of my companion to turn on the gas-jets which light us up this wondrous staircase. "That's where Bradlaugh was confined," remarks janitor, pointing to a door in the wall, and my mind naturally reverted to the political squabbles which led to his incarceration. Then I learnt that within the walls of this mass of brick and stonework, adorning the north-west front of the palace at Westminster--which, by the way, is the largest Gothic edifice in the world--there were rooms and the ventilating shaft of the Houses--of Parliament, as well as a staircase. Politics at this juncture formed a good excuse, and, tired out with the treadmill-like monotony of the stairs, I might have been outside that door now, had not the janitor reminded me that we must reach "Big Ben" before twelve o'clock.

We climbed on--I getting wearier at every step, until the welcome intimation that we were on the level of the clock-room ended a journey which no asthmatical party ought to attempt. Through a small door, and we were face to face with the notable Westminster clock--a masterpiece of horological ingenuity--bearing this inscription: "This clock was made in the Year of Our Lord 1854, by Frederick Dent, of the Strand and Royal Exchange, Clockmaker to the Queen; from the Design of Edmund Beckett Denison, Q.C. Fixed here, 1859." Thus, boys, an eminent lawyer de- signed this great clock of the Houses of Parliament. Stay! here's a rattle like a barnful of owls let loose--What's up? "Oh! half-past eleven is about to strike," says my guide, "and the whirring fans which you see over the machinery of the clock are to moderate the tension on the parts." Then the machinery goes--there is a tussle and tear--wheels, pulleys, cams, crabs, and other parts of the huge escapement struggle violently for few moments against the forces of the iron weights--several tons in weight; the quarter-bells above give off the half-hour chimes, and all is soon still again, save for the vibrations of the bells' tones in the encircling air.

The works of the clock are in a room 28 feet by 18 feet, lighted by pa gas-jet or two, but the frame enclosing the works is 15 1/2 feet long by 4 foot 7 inches Wide. Thus the clock is oblong in shape, and not a square. Originally turret clocks were built on the square, on what is technically known as the "bird-cage" principle, but the shape of the Westminster clock is not unlike a printing machine. The pendulum weighs 700 lbs.-448 of which are taken up by the "bob." It can be accelerated one second a day by putting on an ounce weight. At one end of the works is the winder. The winding-up of the going part takes ten minutes, but the winding-up of the striking parts--the quarter part and the hour part--takes five hours each; and this has to be done twice a week. Two men do this winding--manual labour being preferred as better for the works of the clock.

From this room the time is communicated to the dials, Which, improving upon Janus, keep a watchful eye on London's four sides. There are levers from the works to each dial, crossing the passage which separates this works-room from the four walls of the tower. Upon close inspection the dials are immense; being the largest with minute hands in the world. They measure each 22 1/2 feet in diameter, or very nearly 400 feet in area. The minute hands are 16 feet long--the length of three average men--while the hour hand from the centre of the dial to its extreme point measures 6 feet; and the figures to which they point are 2 feet long. The minute divisions at the outer circumference of the dials stand 14 inches apart, so that in each half-minute the pointer travels 7 inches. There is no jump, however. By the exquisite machinery of the clock the hands move continuously and without any visible jerk. The framework of each face of this huge timepiece weighs 4 tons, exclusive of the glass. This frame is of galvanised iron, and the glass with which it is filled is a very expensive opal. One second for eighty-three days is all the error this clock makes, which can be said for no other clock in the World. "I wonder what it cost?" I hear many a boy inquiring. Well, the dials and hands together cost £5,334, or more than the whole cost of the works and the striking-work in the bell-chamber above, so that £10,000 might be set down as a round figure for its original value. The clock is lighted by jets of gas on the whited wall five feet behind the dials--thus allowing a passage along all four sides of the clock. The gas is turned on, and with long bamboo rods the projecting burners are gradually lighted. Iron rungs for hands and feet are affixed to the wall, and by means of these the man who lights the clock can climb to the uppermost tier of jets if he prefers climbing to the bamboo method.

Much more did Ulysses glean about this famous timepiece, concerning, for instance, its three-legged gravity escapement, its maintaining power and regulation, its hour and quarters striking parts, its legal, official, and controversial history; but, as it was nearing twelve o'clock, a higher stage in our journey had to be reached.

Behind the dial

We made for an adjacent spiral staircase, which having been mounted, landed us in the veritable home of "Big Ben" and his brazen confreres. This is the belfry, which can be distinguished by passers-by below by the mass of gilt on its outside railings. It is a large space devoted entirely to the bells, with a passage on all four sides, with openings to the outer rails of the tower. No Venetian blinds or the like afford protection, or stem the flow of "Big Ben's" mighty tones. Scorning the British climate, "B. B." and his companions send out their message in storm or sunshine, rain or snow alike. The compartment resembles nothing better than a huge iron cage, with a trellis-work iron flooring, while the place abounds in iron girders and rafters. In the centre is "Big Ben"--six feet six inches in height, nine feet in diameter, twenty-seven feet in circumference, and weighing nearly fourteen hundredweight. Truly a colossal bell, and the biggest one in the kingdom until "Great Paul" arrived. Around it are suspended its solemn satellites--varying from six to four feet in diameter--large bells enough, yet insignificant in the company of the great bell, which ought to sound the note E, but doesn't, because it's cracked. Where is it cracked? I was just about to prosecute an inquiry in this direction when there came a strain and a creaking as if the whole tower were about to topple over. I clutched at my watch. It was just twelve, and ere I had realised this, the first note of the quarter sounded. Instantly the place was a blaze of discordant harmonics--an almost unendurable pandemonium. Had the, lower regions themselves been let loose, the noise could scarcely have proved greater. The reverberations from the first quarter's chime had barely disentangled themselves ere the second "quarter" intensified matters. "Clang, clang," roared in the third series, creating a perfect sea of sound, and when the " ding-dong, dong-ding" of the final quarters pealed in, all this mixture of sound seemed lashed into fury. The air around appeared one great maze of strong sound currents made up of discords and harmonies hard for the head to endure. The great bell did not speak for some seconds--a welcome relief, as the pause gave the tone-waves time to disperse and clear the air. "Boom" came the first stroke of twelve o'clock, and the mighty bell quivered from its gudgeons, by which it is held; right down to its rim. With slow but certain aim, the great-clapper (which is arranged outside) rose and fell upon the bell. This while I climbed the staging, so as to actually feel its throbbings under such terrific blows as would fall from a hammer weighing four hundredweight. It trembled violently under punishment. Little wonder, thought I, that it cracked when struck with a clapper double this weight, although the bell should have stood an eight-hundredweight clapper. If it had, the sound would be much louder than it now is. At the final stroke--a sound, thought I, which could never be recalled from the great past--I held the rim of the bell until its pulsations ceased; but it was sometime afterwards ere the sound disappeared from the air. Dismounting, I espied on the floor the iron culprit the injury to "Big Ben," and it certainly looks capable of hurling destruction at anything coming in its Way. It is only fair to say that the non-amalgamation of the tin in the casting, and not the weight of the clapper, proved the secret of the mischief. This is clearly established by the section of metal which has been cut from the bell. We now made for the terrace outside the belfry, from which a magnificent view of London's four sides and suburbs is obtained. The heights on the northern side are plainly visible, while one seems almost able to touch St. Paul's and the Monument. Looking below, human beings appear as so many flies, and horses and vehicles look no bigger than mice tied to toy-carriages. The slanting tops of the Lords' and Commons' Houses (and these are not small buildings) seem far below. Pondering upon the stunted spectacle of the Speaker's house--another large building, with the identical room in which Cromwell signed the order for King Charles' beheading--and other objects below, I was suddenly warned "not to lean too much on the rails." This gave me a turn. I remembered that in the excitement I had been resting heavily upon them. Now came the terrible thought, "Supposing they had given way!" I suddenly felt sick, and was quite prepared for a return to the steps.

From Chums, 26 April 1892