Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 01.djvu/575

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BELL 476 BELL, LIBERTY BELL, ALEXANDEB GRAHAM, in- ventor of the telephone, was born in Edinburgh, March 3, 1847. He was edu- cated in Edinburgh and in Germany, and settled in Canada in 1870. In 1872 he ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL went to the United States and introduced for the education of deaf mutes the sys- tem of visible speech contrived by his father. He became Professor of Vocal Physiology in Boston University, and at the Philadelphia Exhibition, in 1876, ex- hibited his telephone, designed and partly constructed some years before. He was also the inventor of the photophone in 1880, of the graphophone in 1887, and of kindred instruments. He made many im- provements to tetrahedral kites and in aerial locomotion for the Aerial Experi- ment Association (1903-1908). Gold and silver medals and degrees from the lead- ing scientific associations and universities of Europe and the United States have been awarded to him. In 1887 he founded and endowed the Volta Bureau for Re- lief of the Deaf, in 1900 the American Association to Promote the Teaching of Speech to the Deaf. Regent of Smith- sonian Institution since 1898. In 1904 he brought to the U. S. the remains of James Smithson from Genoa, Italy. BELL, JAMES FRANKLIN, an Amer- ican soldier, born in Shelbyville, Ky., in 1856. He graduated from West Point in 1878 and for several years served in the West with the 7th Cavalry. He fought in the Spanish-American War and in the Philippines, and in 1889 was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. From 1906 to 1910 he was Chief of Staff of the United States Army, and from 1911 to 1914 he was commander of the Philippine Division. He commanded the 2d Division of the United States Army in Texas from 1914 to 1915 and from the latter year until 1917 was com- mander of the Western Department. He was appointed commander of the 77th Division in the National Army in 1917, and for a time commanded this division in France. He died in 1919. BELL, JOHN, an American states- man, born near Nashville, Tenn., Feb. 18, 1797; was admitted to the bar in 1816; member of Congress from 1827 to 1841; Speaker in 1834, and Secretary of War in 1841. During this period he changed from an ardent free trader to a protectionist and supporter of the Whigs, and favored the reception of petitions for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia; afterward (1858) he vig- orously opposed the admission of Kansas as a slave State. He sat in the United States Senate from 1847 to 1859, and, in 1860, was nominated for the Presi- dency by the "Constitutional Union" party, but received only 39 electoral votes, cast by the States of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia. He died at Cumberland Ironwoi-ks, Sept. 10, 1869. BELL, LIBERTY, a famous bell which was rung when the Continental Congress THE LIBERTY BELL, INDEPENDENCE HALL, PHILADELPHIA, PA. declared the independence of the United States in 1776. The order for founding it was given in 1751. The State House of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, work