LAYING GUNS BY TELESCOPE. 
407 
are appended. This battery is selected merely because it is first on 
the list, and the results are analogous in all the others. If the object 
to be fired at is not clearly defined, as it often happens on service, the 
deviations in laying with the naked eye are much greater, and it is in 
a case of this kind especially that the advantage of the telescopic 
apparatus can be.best appreciated. 
6. With the telescope an inexperienced man can lay a gun as well 
as a very good marksman, or in other words, every gunner becomes a 
marksman, and every man, however bad at laying with the naked eye, 
can make as good a score with the telescope as an excellent marksman 
can without it. 
7. A gun can be laid just as quickly with the telescope as without 
it. The following number of rounds were fired from one gun :— 
110 rounds in 1 hour 5 mins. 
a a a 
a u 1 hour 30 mins. 
80 „ 1 hour. 
See the report of the Tarbes Commission, dated 25th September, 1876. 
8. With the telescope we can ascertain the effects produced by our 
fire at any range. These instruments magnify 12 or 15 times, so that 
with them one can see as well at 2500 metres as at 200 or 300 with 
the naked eye. 
9. The instrument being regulated in such a manner that one cross¬ 
hair shall be horizontal when the gun-wheels are on the same level, one 
can see at once by observing the position of the cross-hairs, whether 
one wheel is lower than the other; now, when the wheels are not level, 
the projectile not only falls on the side of the lower wheel, but it also 
falls short—a fact which is frequently lost sight of. 
The telescopic apparatus can also be used with guns of 138 mm , and 
with rifled howitzers of 22 cm , but owing to the sights of these pieces 
being differently constructed from those of field guns, certain modifi¬ 
cations are required in the form and position of the “rest.” These 
details are omitted here, the principle being the same in every case. 
FURTHER VERIFICATION. 
Having laid a gun with the telescope, I fixed tightly in the bore a Verification, 
cylinder carrying a vertical rod, with another telescope at the top 
working on a knee-joint. I then brought the cross-hairs of the second 
telescope exactly on the point at which the first was directed and 
clamped with the screw of the knee-joint. Thus I had two visual lines 
converging on a point 4000 metres distant. I then removed the first 
telescope, and, having disturbed the position of the gun, replaced the 
instrument, and laid again on the same object. The intersection of 
