488 RANGING BY CLINOMETER. 
(2). It is practically necessary to remove it from its position on 
the cut plane if any alteration in elevation is necessary. 
(3). If the gun wheels are not level the angle of elevation shown 
on the drum is not the true elevation. 
(4). The means of reading the drum is inaccurate owing to unequal 
wear of the screw and thread. 
(5). Hven when new it will not stand the jolts of transport in a 
limber box and becomes unreliable. 
(6). The gun-layer cannot conveniently see the bubble of the 
spirit-level from the elevating position. 
Another clinometer is the Scott’s sight, when fitted with a horizontal 
level, and when so fitted it is, perhaps, the most satisfactory clinometer 
that we have yet had, as objections 1 and 3 to the service clinometer 
are quite obviated, and the elevations given on the degree scale are 
fairly reliable. The scale, however, is struck on too short a radius and 
is rather hard to read in consequence. 
All Scott’s sights are now to be fitted with horizontal levels so as 
to make the sight do double duty, both as a sight and as a clino- 
meter; and this will, no doubt, be a very good make-shift until 
something better is obtained; by which time telescopic sights will 
probably be found to be more trouble than they are worth and the 
tangent sight and clinometer, more especially the latter, alone relied 
on. 
A drum with yard scale has been added and is to be used instead of 
the arc marked in degrees, and this, though giving a more open scale and 
so facilitating setting without the use of a vernier, will probably be found 
open to objections (4) and (5) made to the service clinometer. In 
addition to this probable cause of unreliability there is another—there is 
an adjustable zero. Now the natural state of all adjustable zeros is never 
to be in adjustment at zero, and this fact is often forgotten when 
wanted for use, the result being in and out shooting by each gun of a 
battery. This fact is very well exemplified by the slow motion 
elevating nuts on the top of tangent scales which recently were 
ordered to be soldered up fast at zero for this very reason. 
I am, of course, aware that a more open scale has been very 
generally demanded by the Regiment, and that drum reading seems 
the simplest way of giving it, and further that there is a very general 
belief (though not amongst battery commanders) that the small errors 
of elevation which would be introduced by the drum would not much 
matter in a gun which is essentially a shrapnel gun. Nor do the 
much matter once the elevation has been found, but I would appeal to 
battery commanders to say ifin and out shooting during ranging for 
elevation is not the most fruitful of all the causes of failure and waste 
of ammunition at practice. 
The above are the only patterns of which we have had practical 
experience, and the result has not been very encouraging to supporters 
of quadrant elevation, though battery commanders have done their best 
