Hear the Bell Toll

That sounds interesting.

bio

I think the question is whether the watery clank would translate back to a melodious clang when the vibrations transfer from water to air. I am presuming the legend is being considered on real world terms rather than oogie boogie ghost sounds. I have heard of underwater musicians, but am not sure if anyone has listened to one from above the water.

still, to me, this would be a mini-myth at best.

I would think towns flooded by reservoirs would have a higher likelihood of actually having a bell still able to ring. the town in my area that was swallowed up by the ocean would have any bells buried in sand; as the erosion destroyed the buildings.

I would think they could easily replace bells with chimes, as I would not expect anyone owning a larger bell to offer to loan it to them for testing; and chimes can easily be made from steel tubing.

Most of the stories about ringing bells seem to come from places that were flooded - a typical theme seems to be some idiot opening a dike. They also seem to involve well established, and often fairly wealthy towns - 'judgement of God for their sins' is another theme, but not testable as he/she/it doesn't give interviews.

A fairly wealthy town would, one would assume, have build a fairly solid church - one of the first types of stone building you see in early towns tends to be a church. And such structures would probably be more likely to survive being flooded intact. So the idea of church bells managing to survive a town being flooded by the sea seems reasonable, as does the idea of the beams they hung from remaining intact for quite some time.

'Swallowed over night by the sea' may have been hyperbole. Or it may be that the writer was really talking about the inhabitants packing up and leaving in a hurry - in which case church bells would be low on the list of priorities, even if the locals had the equipment on hand to carry a ton or so of metal with them.
It also has to be remembered that the loss of the towns was often put down to the wrath of God. So implying that the town ended up at the bottom of the sea in one night - usually along with all the sinful inhabitants - is a lot more dramatic than 'Was flooded over the course of a week, with the loss of only one old man who fell off a cart'.

As to testing. Is there a reason MB couldn't make their own large bell? I'm thinking that a large metal tank cut in half and with a clapper may make a suitable bell for testing. This type of build would also allow them to make several large bells of different sizes, to see if any of them work better than others. They could start with something the same size as the typical medieval church bell and move up to the largest they can make and transport.

Testing could be done in the shop using a fish-tank, then move up to a swimming pool and then they could either use the lake or even dangle the bells into SF bay for the full scale tests.
If they are doing this they could also look at different types of percussion instruments for fun, and to see if there is a type of instrument that could be played underwater and still heard by someone on the surface.

The first test would be: Could a bell ring underwater? Though, the answer to this may lie in how far underwater the bell is.

Also, how would a bell be rung underwater? Tidal undercurrents?

Large church bells tend to be rather large & heavy.

Due to corrosion & deterioration while underwater, how long before the steeple collapses and leave the bells sitting on the bottom?

Cyber, I would think full scale would have to be tested at the quarry lake, as there are critters in the Bay that could be adversely affected by sound waves. The US Navy has been blamed for some deaths of migrating whales due to sonar testing offshore.

Couldn't a full-scale test be more comfortably conducted in a swimming pool?

bio

A church-sized bell would be too large for most swimming pools, plus the walls of the pool would probably reflect some of the sound which could affect the results. So MB would want to have as much water surrounding the bell as possible to get useful results - not a problem for hand bells or even smaller ones in a swimming pool. But if they can make something the same size as a large church bell - or larger to see what it might take - then they would need to use either the lake or the bay.

Using the bay would be ideal, since all the myths indicate towns being swallowed by the sea and seawater may transmit sound differently than fresh water. (Plus they would be able to see if currents would be capable of swinging a bell enough to cause it to ring - something they clearly couldn't do in a lake as it has no currents). But the lake would be a more controlled environment, and certainly quieter and probably have more usable depth than the bay.

If MB take the view that it is better to make their own bells - which would be a heck of a lot cheaper and avoids concerns about loosing something expensive - then there is no reason why they can't make a VERY large bell. The idea of using an old pressurised tank and cutting it in half to create a bell doesn't have to be limited to small scuba-sized tanks. We already know that there is a place near SF that has huge numbers of old tanks of various sizes since they've bought tanks from there before. And if they are not interested in pressurising the tank they may well be able to get a very large tank dirt cheap.

The more I look at this, and the more it is discussed, the more practical and interesting I think this may be. I'm not seeing any real stumbling blocks or problems in the build, testing or myth itself.
It wouldn't require anything they don't have or can't get, doesn't need experts and the build(s) seem as straightforward as you can get.

The pond they used for the pig drop is, if I recall correctly, part of the water system for SF - so fresh water. As is the lake where they have tested other myths, such as dive to survive.