A famous clock 一个著名的大钟
When youvisit London,one of the first things you will see is Big Ben, the famous clock
which canbe heard all over the world on the B.B.C. If the Houses of Parliament had not been burned down in 1834, the great clock would never have been erected. Big Bentakes
its name from Sir Benjamin Hall who was responsible for the making of the clock when the
new Houses of Parliament were being built. It is not only of immense size, but is extremely
accurate as well. Officials from Greenwich Observatory have the clock checked twice a day.
On theB.B.C. you can hear the clock when it is actually striking because microphones are
connected to the clock tower. Big Ben has rarely gone wrong. Once, however, it failed to
give thecorrect time. A painter who had been working on the tower hung a pot of painton
one of thehands and slowed it down!