IMPROVEMENTS IN MARKERS' BUTTS OR MANTELETS
Year: 1862

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Robert Nightingale, at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 31st March
1862.
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
mantelets. For
For these purposes, in order to obtain greater safety to the
markers, and at the same time greater promptitude and exactness of marking
and of signalling, 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 below, 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

page_text: position on the 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 constructing 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 high or
low, and by employing flags thus mounted on both sides of a butt or mantelet
for indicating" centres" and "outers," and one flag at either side for indi-
cating 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.