168 COAST ARTILLERY IN ACTION. 
very often and the boards split,—to say nothing of a gunner occasionally hammer- 
ing at it, tapping it he calls it, which means giving it a good blow, by which means 
he thinks he can make his friend hear better. And another thing about the tele- 
phone is the telephonist. Not to put too fine a point on it there is no money in 
it, and we get, as a rule, the third and fourth class men in companies to train as 
telephonists. There is so much money now among all ranks, that what with gun- 
layers, range-finding specialists, and other paid employments, the best men in the 
company are not available for telephonists, and our experience this summer amongst 
nine companies was that we got the third or fourth rate men sent us to be trained 
as telephonists. I have even had men sent to me to train who could not read, so 
that when I gave them a message they could not read it onthe paper. They were 
rejected of course. Then again some men cannot hear through the telephone, al- 
though they may be able to speak through it. I know some educated people who 
cannot hear through the telephone, and dislike putting their ears toit. And again 
other men’s voices are very bad. ‘Therefore when you come to take a company of 
Garrison Artillery and say, send me ten men to train as telephonists, you frequently 
have to reject numbers. I think that any other method of electric communication 
would be better. Personally I have been able to get an A.B.C. telegraph instru- 
ment lent by the Post Office Authorities, and it worked with great success. It is 
very simple to send messages in the code, there are no electric batteries, no 
shouting down through the instrument, and the men picked it up very well. I 
hope to have further trials with it next year. 
I think Colonel Jocelyn has given us a very good lecture to-night, and we are 
very much obliged to him. I have heard it with a great deal of interest, as he had 
taught me a good deal down in the Isle of Wight when I first went there. 
Captain I. M. Lowe writes :—“ Being obliged to leave the lecture-room before 
the conclusion of the discussion, I beg to forward a few remarks on Colonel 
Jocelyn’s interesting lecture. 
With regard to the effect of loss of M.V. upon range, it is not absolutely 
necessary to have the second curve given in Fig. 3 provided for us, although no 
doubt it simples matters. 
If we determine the reduced M.V. that will cause the projectile to fall 10 yards 
short, when the gun is elevated according to the range table for 1000 yards, and 
calculate the “‘unders ” for that M.V. at each range, we obtain a series of figures 
that form a useful addition to the range table. 
For example an abridged range table for the 10” R.M.L. gun is given: 
ang Ranges Correcting factors for 
Elevation. | stv, 1979 fs, loss of M.V. 
1° 28’ 1000 10:0 
3° 14/ 2000 18°3 
5° 18’ 3000 25:1 
7° 39’ 4000 30'8 
A Battery Commander, knowing his powder correction at 2000 yards to be 180, 
can see at once from the above table that at 3000 yards it must be 250 yards. 
_Or again firing with a reduced charge without a range table, it is found that with 
3° 14! elevation the projectile falls 795 yards short of the range given for that eleva- 
tion with the fullcharge. By means of the correcting factors, and the range table 
