THE WELDON RANGE-FINDER. 
351 
painting ordinary tape with two or three coats of flake white (oil), and 
then painting the ranges on them in black and red, but such tapes are 
not strong, though they do not stretch. In England a good tape of 
the kind needed could easily, I suppose, be obtained, and this would 
simplify the working greatly. The narrower the better, consistent 
with strength, as wind catches a broad tape. 
Another great disadvantage here is the fact that it is too hot to take 
a squad out except early in the morning, or late in the evening, for 
little over an hour at a time. The light is generally very bad, and 
before the men have got well to work it is too hot to go on. In England 
I could, I think, train reasonably intelligent men to work correctly with 
the auxiliary base-finder in a fortnight. Here I would not trust their 
results under a month or more, but much depends on eyesight, intelli¬ 
gence, and a habit of correctness. Some men will always try to fudge ; 
they often think the range they have obtained must be incorrect, and 
instead of giving the exact result they have obtained, shorten or lengthen 
the range. Frequently the range they have really obtained is perfectly 
correct. Such men I draft out of a squad—they are useless. A good 
way of finding them out is to make them pace yards. Count yourself 
the paces they take. It is impossible that they should always be 
correct, but some men think it smart to be so, and add or subtract a 
yard or so with great effrontery. 
Four men are as many as one instructor can readily train at a time. 
I should like to caution those who make trial of the range-finder 
against the belief that they will at once, without any practice, find 
ranges both accurately or quickly. Some men never do either, some 
learn very rapidly, but of the men I have trained there are only a few 
on whom I could rely to within 20 yds. of a range. 
In the following instances I have taken the results of a squad of 
young IST.-C.-CTs. It is now three weeks since they commenced, and 
I have taken the instances at random, or rather have taken them from 
out of a great many records, with a view to point out particular 
instances—not to show accuracy. It is a very good practice to 
invariably record all the work done. I wish I had done so from the 
first; it would have given me a far better notion of the men I could 
depend upon. 
My system of training, which is capable of great improvement, but 
has answered fairly, is worth a trial. 
To begin with, pacing is quicker than measuring, and if a man can 
be got to pace yards nearly correctly, a range is generally found 
accurate enough for artillery practice to commence, If great accuracy 
be required the base must be measured. 
\mm 
too 
I, therefore, measure out 100 yds., and mark each yard for say ten 
yards at each end of the measured distance. The men pace this 100 
yds. walking at their natural pace, the result being recorded. Then 
they pace up and down the marked yards until they get into a yard 
