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CHAP. III.

ON PRICKING CHANGES.

The sound of bells continuously rung in rounds soon grows monotonous to tbe hearers; besides tliis, the work proves eąually monotonous to the performers. If, however, the order in which the bells be rung is altered, a pleasing variation in the sound is produced. Such alterations are called “ changes" and while, as Mr. Troyle has so truły and happily expressed it, “a person with sufficient strength and intelligence to turn a mangle could no doubt be taught to ring rounds,” the practice of change-ringing gives fuli scope for the exercise of the intellectual as well as the physical powers. There is one way of ringing changes, liowever, which is only one step removed from the duli work of round-ringing; changes rung in tliis way are known as “ cali changes" and are produced in the following manner:—One of the ringers calls out the numbers of two or morę of the bells according to the order in which they are to follow one another; this change is then struck several times until the order for another variation is given, and so on. There is, bowever, a legitimate and scientific way of ringing changes in which the position of the bells is altered at each stroke, and thus, every time the bells are sounded, a change differing from any preceding one is produced. It is this modę of ringing changes that I am now about to explain.

It is evident that to produce changes which shall constantly vary, until at a known and expected time the bells shall agam