Whose Fault Was It? (June 1973 | Volume: 24, Issue: 4)

Whose Fault Was It?

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June 1973 | Volume 24, Issue 4

Every schoolchild knows that the Liberty Bell is cracked; the crack is almost as famous as the bell itself. But just when and why the crack appeared is a much more esoteric matter. It is sometimes assumed, patriotically but mistakenly, that the bell cracked out of overenthusiasm while being rung to celebrate the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Somewhat more solid evidence suggests that it broke in 1835, either in July while tolling a knell for Chief Justice John Marshall or on Washington’s Birthday, when a group of small boys pulled too energetically on the rope. One of the boys, Emmanuel Rauch, was interviewed in 1911 and stuck to that story, observing besides that for any funeral the bell’s clapper would have been muffled and unlikely to cause damage. In 1846 an attempt was made to put the great bell in ringing order by drilling out the edges of the crack to prevent their rubbing together. This worked about as well as the dentistry characteristic of the period; and when the bell was rung on February 23 of that year (Washington’s Birthday having fallen on Sunday), the crack suddenly split open farther. Since then the only sound heard from the Liberty Bell has been a disappointing thunk created by tapping it gently with a small mallet on triumphant occasions like the Allied invasion of Normandy in 1944.

But why did the bell crack in the first place?This highly technical question has recently been given extensive study by a professional metallurgist, Dr. Alan R. Rosenfield, an .expert on metal fracture who is associated with the Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio. He has come up with some interesting facts and explanations. In general, he points out, “bells are necessarily made out of brittle metal, and they often break. Even Big Ben is slightly cracked. ”

The Liberty Bell is a moderately large one, with a lip circumference of twelve feet and a total weight of over a ton. In 1751, when the Assembly of the Province of Pennsylvania wanted a suitable bell for the newly completed belfry of their State House in Philadelphia, they ordered one from the Whitechapel Bell Foundry in London—presumably because they did not trust any foundry in America to design such a large bell. It arrived at Philadelphia in the late summer of 1752. To everyone’s surprise and dismay it promptly cracked “by a stroke of the clapper without any other violence, as it was hung up to try the sound. ”

To save a round trip to England two local foundrymen—John Pass and John Stow—were engaged to recast the bell. While they do not appear to have been experienced bell founders, they knew that the ideal bronze alloy for a large bell should contain about 77 per cent copper and 23 per cent tin. They also knew that an increase in the proportion of tin improves the tone and resonance of a bell —one might say