Dripread - Book

when it was hung, early in 1753, as it was being first rung to test the sound, it cracked without any apparent reason, and it was necessary to have it recast. It was at first thought to be necessary to send it back to England for the purpose, but some "ingenious workmen" in Philadelphia wished to do the casting and were allowed to do so. In the first week of June, 1753, the bell was again hung in the belfry of the State House. On July 4, 1776, it was known throughout the city that the final decision on the question of declaring the colonies independent of Great Britain was to be made by the Continental Congress, in session at the State House. Accordingly the old bellman had been stationed in the belfry on that morning, with orders to ring the bell when a boy waiting at the door of the State House below should signal to him that the bill for independence had been passed. Hour after hour the old man stood at his post. At last, at 2 o'clock, when he had about concluded that the question would not be decided on that day at least, the watchman heard a shout from below, and looking down saw the boy at the door clapping his hands and calling at the top of his voice: "Ring! ring!" And he did ring, the story goes, for two whole hours, being so filled with excitement and enthusiasm that he could not stop. When the British threatened Philadelphia, in 1777, the precious bell was taken down and removed to the town of Bethlehem for safety. In 1778 it was returned to the State House and a new steeple built for it. Several years after it cracked, for some unknown reason, under a stroke of the clapper, and its tone was thus destroyed. An attempt was made to restore its tone by sawing the crack wider, but without success. This bell was sent to New Orleans during the winter to be exhibited in the World's Fair there. The Pullman Company gave one of their handsomest cars for the transit. It was in the charge of three custodians appointed by the Mayor of Philadelphia, who did not leave it night or day, and guarded it as fully as possible against accident. A pilot engine preceded the train carrying the bell over the entire route. It left Philadelphia Jan. 24, 1885, and returned in June.

THE ANTARCTIC POLAR REGIONS.--The climate of the southern polar regions is much more severe than that at the north pole, the icefields extending in degrees nearer the equator from the south than from the north. Within the arctic circle there are tribes of men living on the borders of the icy ocean on both the east and west hemispheres, but within the antarctic all is one dreary, uninhabitable waste. In the extreme north the reindeer and the musk-ox are found in numbers, but not a single land quadruped exists beyond 50 degrees of southern latitude. Flowers are seen in summer by the arctic navigator as far as 78 degrees north, but no plant of any description, not even a moss or a lichen, has been observed beyond Cockburn Island, in 64 degrees 12 minutes south latitude. In Spitzbergen, 79 degrees north, vegetation ascends the mountain slopes to a height of 3,000 feet, but on every land within or near the antarctic circle the snow-line descends to the water's edge. The highest latitude ever reached at the south is 78 degrees 10 minutes, while in the north navigators have penetrated to 84 degrees. The reason for this remarkable difference is the predominance of large tracts of land in the northern regions, while in the south is a vast expanse of ocean. In the north continental masses form an almost continuous belt around the icy sea, while in the southern hemisphere the continents taper down into a broad extent of frigid waters. In the north the plains of Siberia and of the Hudson's Bay territories, warmed by the sunbeams of summer, become at that season centers of radiating heat, while the antarctic lands, of small extent, isolated in the midst of a polar ocean and chilled by cold sea winds, act at every season as refrigerators of the atmosphere. Further in the north the cold currents of the polar sea, having but two openings of any estent through which they can convey drift ice, have their chilly influence confined to comparatively narrow limits, but the cold currents of the antarctic seas have scope to branch out freely on all sides and carry their ice even into temperate waters. Finally, at the northern hemisphere, the Gulf Stream conveys warmth even to the shores of Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla, while on the opposite regions of the globe no traces of warm currents have been observed beyond 55 degrees of south latitude.

THE LANGUAGE USED BY CHRIST.--The language used by Christ was the Aramaic, the dialect of Northern Syria. The Israelites were much in contact with Aram�an populations, and some words from that tongue became incorporated into the Hebrew at a very early date. At the time of Hezekiah, Aramaic had become the official language of both

Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889