nd other authorities.]

I may mention that the 4.7's and 6" Q.-F. were often fired at
elevations which did not even come on the graduated elevation arc, and
so the clinometer had to be borrowed from the military and used to lay
the guns; it is most useful.

For night firing on shore, as practised by us at Colenso and Spion
Kop, guns are laid for required distant object just before dusk. The
position of the wheels is accurately marked by pegs and lines, and
when the gun is laid the sight is lowered to some white object placed
fifty yards in front of gun, on which when dark a lantern may be
placed; the elevation is read off either on arc of sight or by
clinometer placed on the gun. To keep on firing at this distant object
when dark, the gun is run out to same wheel marks every time and laid
for same direction by the lantern on the near object, and elevation by
clinometer. The C.O.'s of regiments always most kindly put their
mekometer and trained observers at our disposal on escorting us up to
a position.

A plane table survey, using a mekometer to measure one's base, is
pretty easily made to get position of kopjes, trenches, well-defined
gun emplacements and their ranges, roughly, but it wants a certain
amount of time to do it.

As to the emplacing of a 12-pounder or other Q.-F. gun for attack or
defence, all hard and fast rules may, in my opinion, be at once
dismissed, the matter entirely depending on the nature of the ground
occupied and the direction and extent of fire required. Still I submit
the following points as being useful to remember:--

(1.) Carefully select the ground. If on a ridge, hill, or kopje,
the emplacement must be over the sky-line either on one slope or
the other; take a place where Nature helps you, if possible
screened by trees, free of rocks, and with soft ground, dongas,
or water round it, so that the enemy's shells will bury
themselves and not burst on striking. Of course in South Africa,
except on the flat, this could hardly ever be done.

(2.) The best form of emplacement is a gun pit about 1 foot 6
inches deep, according to our experience in Natal, the earth or
rock taken out forming a circular parapet 3 feet 6 inches high,
and as bulky or thick as ever you like on the front face, the
floor of the pit being levelled and a gradual slope made out of
it for guns to be moved easily in and out of the pit. The size of
th