Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 May 1893 — London’s Big Ben. [ARTICLE]

London’s Big Ben.

Between the palace yard at Westminster and the top of the clock tower which marks the hours fer Parliament there are 420 steps. The clock from which Big Ben strikes the hour is the largest in the world. Looking at the dial from the northern footway of Great George street, or from the embankment, it looks as if its diameter might be equal to the space that a man of medium size could cover with outstretched arms. This estimate hardly does the dial justice, for its diameter is twenty-three feet. From the ground the minutes on the dial look like odinary minutes, and as if they were close together. As a matter of fact they are a foot apart. The numerals are two feet long. The minute hand, with the counter balance—the heavy end that projects beyond the center of the dial—is fifteen feet in length. This hand is so massive that during a snowstorm sometimes the clock is retarded by the weight of the flakes that alight upon it. Twenty men could stand under Big Ben in a rainstorm and escape a wetting if the rain fell in an exact perpendicular and stayed where it fell. The new r light at the top of the Parliament tower is forty-three steps higher than Big Ben. The old light was twenty-four steps higher still. The new light is 2,000 candle power. When the light is being fixed two men stand in the lantern, and they have plenty of room. The Parliament light is now a conspicuous object in London.—[Pall Mall Gazette.