THE KAISER-GLOCKE AT COLOGNE.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 323, 25 June 1875, Page 4

THE KAISER-GLOCKE AT COLOGNE.

{From the Berlin Correspondeat of the Daily News.) The great bell (Kaiser-glocke, or Emperor Bell) has been for the third time. Its final preparation and cooking must have been a tremendous business. A huge gulf was first dug in the earth, wherein the stuffing upon which the inside of the bell was to be moulded was solidly built of a particular sort of masonry. The size of this brick and mortar receptacle may be estimated by the circumstance that fourteen full-grown men can stand comfortably under the bell. When the stuffing was finished and hardened, a clay bell was constructed over it, of the exact dimensions to be given to the metal bell ; the coats of arms and florid ornamentation of various descriptions were modelled upon this clay by the respective artists, and the inscriptions fixed upon it in letters made of wax. This false bell was then besmeared with grease, and the " mantle" was again superimposed upon it, of clay well worked up with calves' hair to bind it well together. As soon as the " mantle " was completed it was lifted off, the false bell re moved, and the mantle replaced in exactly its former positions with the most minute care and precision, a hole being left in the apex through which to pour the boiling metal into the vacuum between "stuffing" and "mantle." The furnace wherein the French guns of which the bell is made were cooked consumed 200 cwt of coal, and burned furiously for twelve hours, melting down and artistically stewing no less than twenty-two captured cannon, some of which were field-pieces of the Louis XIV. period, and were taken from the French Royal forces during their campaign in the Palatinate. When the fluid metal resulting from this grand brew of artillery was " turned on " into the mouth of the casting, it flowed freely and incessantly for twentynine minutes ere the "form" was full to the brim, and took three weeks to cool 1 Disembarrassed of its "mantle" the dimensions of the bell are as follows:—l2ft in height, lift in diameter, 33ft in circumference; its weight is twenty-five tons, and its clapper weighs 16 cwt. All the other bells of Cologne Cathedral put together do not weigh as much as this monster, to ring which thirty men will be required. The inscription is enclosed in a handsome arabesque, above which stands St Peter, whilst beneath it is depicted the escutcheon of the German Realm. The inscription'is worded in the Latin tongue, as are a couple of distiches on the opposite side, which may be translated, " I announce to the people with my voice a heavenly message ; souls are aroused by it, and chime in eagerly. Thou who openest the halls of the temple, moved thereto by my voice, open at the same time, thou heavenly porter, the gates of Heaven." A German inscription runs, translated, as follows : " My name is the Emperor Bell ; I celebrate the Emperor's honor; I stand on the holy watchtower, and pray for the German Empire—that God may grant it peace and security." The Kaiser-glocke will be hung up in the old belfry, under the present peal, until the Cathedral shall be finished, when all the five bells composing the complete peal will be definitively suspended at an elevation of 200 ft above the Cathedral square.