The following descriptions of Mr. Edwards W. Bok's Mountain Lake Sanctuary and Singing Tower are taken from addresses given by Major H. M. Nornabell, Director of the Sanctuary and reprinted in a copyrighted booklet by The Highlander Publishing Co., Lake Wales.

"Why has Mr. Edward W. Bok given to the people this beautiful Sanctuary and its wonderful Singing Tower?"
The answer is best found in the prologue to "The Americanization of Edward Bok" and in his "Two Persons." There he tells how the Dutch government entrusted the care of a dangerous sandbar off the Dutch coast to hid grandfather. Infested with pirates, and as barren of all vegetation as the most arid spot on earth, nevertheless order was not only established there, but more. Both his grandparents were true lovers of beauty, and by their own art and persistence planted the island so wonderfully with trees and shrubs, they changed their sandbar into a haven of beauty, where birds rested on their journey across the North sea, thus saving the lives of thousands. Humans came also to this Sanctuary from the world over for inspiration.
The message left by these grandparents, "Make you the world a bit more beautiful and better because you have lived in it," became Mr. Bok's own inspiration throughout his life in America with his many services to his fellow men. But he did not find the place to fully realize his grandparents' message until he walked one evening from his home at Mountain Lake to Iron Mountain. The sun was setting and the moon rising at its full. Standing between those two ancient symbols of man's ideals and his activities Mr. Bok felt that this mountain once hallowed by the worship of the Indians of Florida who used to meet here each spring to reverence the Great Spirit, was the place to establish a Sanctuary for birds and humans, and with its beauty help each of you to make your own world a bit more beautiful and better because you have lived in it.

Why Is It Called A Singing Tower?
This is the traditional name of a carillon tower. From early medieval times in the Netherlands, Belgium, and the North of France, Watch towers were erected from which sentinels could see the flooding of the dykes or the coming of invaders. In such a crisis the blowing of a horn by a watch would summon people to the threatened danger.
Gradually a bell replaced the horn. Then clocks were introduced into the towers and bells were struck to mark the passing hours. More bells were added, then chimes on which simple tunes were played at the quarter hours, and more fully before the big bell struck the hour. Slowly through the succeeding centuries still more bells were added until in the 17th century, that majestic instrument, the carillon was evolved.
Those towers were of international importance in the community life, calling their people to war, to peace, to prayer, to work and to feast. As each country saw its national history reflected in the architecture of the tower, as well as in the music of the bells, both became a single unit to its folk and known as a "Sing-ing Tower." When you hear the carillon at the Sanctuary send out its glorious melodies from the tower's height, (some 205 feet) you will also lose the idea of the tower as just a building, or of the bells as bells. Instead you will fell the whole unit alive, a wonderful singing force, the noblest expression of democratic music, a true Singing Tower.
Regarding the pronunciation of carillon, it is generally accepted as good English to pronounce carillon with the "o" and in atom, The player is a carillonneur with the last syllable sounded as "eur" in chauffeur.

"The kiss of the sun for pardon,
The song of the birds for mirth-
One is nearer God's heart in a garden
Than anywhere else on earth."

[Photo caption] Resurrection Garden in Sanctuary

What Is A Carillon?
An exact definition demands too many details of the technique of tower music. "It is enough to say a carillon is a set of bells tuned to the intervals of the chromatic scale, that is, proceeding entirely by half tones, the compass being three octaves or more, the lowest bell being often many tones, so that in the highest octaves the weight of each bell is but a few pounds and all the bells hang "dead" or fixed, that is, so as not to swing."
Many people do not realize the difference between a carillon and a chime.
"A Chime, ring, or peal, is a set of bells not more than 8, 10 or 12 in number tuned to the notes of the diatonic scale (that is, proceeding by a definite order of tones and half tones.") The carillon is played on a keyboard or clavier, similar to an organ piano.
Our carillon has 71 bells with 53 notes, or four and one-half octaves. The total weight of the bells is 123,264 pounds. The tenor bell alone weighs 11 tons and the smallest 12 pounds. It is one of the finest and largest carillons ever cast, and was made at the John Taylor & Sons Bellfoundry at Loughborough, England.
In materials and motifs the Singing Tower often partakes directly of Florida itself. The coquina rock used in the lower walls was excavated at National Gardens north of Daytona. Coquina rock is historic to Florida and was used by the Spaniards in the old fort at St. Augustine in 1638. Also a Florida motif is found in the grill of colored faience in the lancet windows. There through a richly colored series of under sea forms like the jelly-fish and sea-horse, the development of life is traced through flora and fauna reaching the trees and birds of the upper panels and centering in a relief that shows "man's dominion over all."
Similarly the carvings of birds on the marble band encircling the tower above the great North Door, and the pinnacles which replace the gargoyles of European Gothic, show the cranes, flamingos and native birds of Florida. Wherever possible, the architect, Milton B. Medary, and the builders, Horace Burrell & Sons, have used Southern material in the construction of the Tower. Both the gray marble at its base called "Creole" which is cut to suggest the outline of bells, and also the pink "Etowah" marble are from the Tate Quarries of Georgia.
The Tower weighs 5,500 tons and is securely anchored to a reinforced concrete mat, 2 feet 6 inches thick. This in turn is supported by 160 reinforced concrete piles, driven to varying depths from 13 feet 2 inches to 24 feet 10 inches below ground. The Tower rises from its foundation, 51 feet wide at its base to the majestic height of 205 feet 2 inches. In gradually changing form and tapering lines it becomes octagonal at the top but 17 feet wide. The North Door is of copper bronze, hand-wrought, by Samuel Yellin, centering in its rich design the various motifs of the Sanctuary and the Tower.