IMPROVEMENTS IN MARKERS' BUTTS OR MANTELETS
Year: 1861

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Robert Nightingale at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on tho 1st October
1861.
I, ROBERT NIGHTINGALE, of Maldon, in the County of Essex, Artist, do
hereby declare the nature of the Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN MARKERS'
BUTTS OR MANTELETS," to be as follows:-
This Invention has for its object improvements in markers' butts or man-
telets. For these purposes in order to obtain greater safety to the markers, and
at the same time greater promptitude and exactnesss of marking and of signal-
ling, in place of constructing markers' butts or mantelets as heretofore in such
manner that the markers may look at the targets so as to see where each
ball strikes, and then to signal with hand flags, I construct a marker's butt
or mantelet enclosed on all sides, and I make all parts sufficiently bullet-
proof to prevent accident to the markers, whether by the direct action of
bullets or portions of bullets, or by their rebound, or by their being deflected
into the butt or mantelet or from any stone or substance struck by a bullet.
And in order to enable the markers to ascertain the positions where any balls
may strike a target I apply at the upper part of a marker's butt or mantelet, a
bullet-proof camera so arranged that it may throw an image of the target on to
a table or surface bolow, on which is placed properly ruled or prepared paper
corresponding with the divided surface of the target, so that the mark made by
each bullet on striking the target will be imaged in its precise position on the

page_text: ruled or divided paper, and be there marked or indicated by the marker with ink
or other material together with the number of the shot; and in order to obtain
a full record of all the shots, the marker may also register or mark in the
margin of the paper all shots which miss the target, together with their
numbers, or the order in which such misses have occurred. In order that the
markers in such enclosed butts or mantelets may hear any call or signal from
without, and also to obtain good ventilation, inclined or bent passages or tubes
are applied, which prevent the passage of light, but admit air and sound freely.
The door and doorway are to be in any convenient position, taking care that
their position and construction are such as not to admit of the passage of a
bullet or part of one into the butt or mantelet. The materials used in con-
structing such butts or mantelets may be such as have heretofore been used,
but so employed as not only to make the butts or mantelets bullet-proof at
the backs and ends as heretofore, but also in the fronts facing the targets.
In order the better to employ signalling flags, I mount each flag on a staff
or handle, the end of which is screwed into the periphery of a disc, which
is arranged to work on an axis in a slit or narrow passage, so that by having
a handle on each disc interior of a butt or mantelet, the disc on which a flag
is mounted may be moved on its axis, so as to raise the flag to any desired
height in such manner as to indicate whether a ball has struck the target
bigh or low, and by employing flags thus mounted on both sides of a butt or
mantelet for indicating "centres" and "outers," and ono flag at either sido
for indicating a "bull's-eye," it may be indicated whether the bullet has struck
towards the right or left of the target.
In order to protect the flags when down, they fall to an inclined position,
which is protected by an iron plate or ball-proof projection exterior of the butt
or mantelet.