Jasper Republican, Volume 2, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 January 1876 — Of Interest to Riflemen. [ARTICLE]

Of Interest to Riflemen.

Riflemen will be glad to hear that there is at last a reasonable prospect of the introduction of an instrument by means of which the ranges of distinct objects can be determined with sapidity and accuracy. Capt. Poste has designed an apparatus for this purpose, which is so promising that a trial has been accorded by the War Office authorities. Capt Poste’s “macrometer,” as it is called, consists Of two mirrors, disposed somewhat similarly to the mirrors of a marine sextant, the observations also being taken much in the same way. The movable mirror, however, is fixed to an arm, on which are marked the several distances, from twenty to 2,000 yards. The arm moves over a peculiar curve placed on a part of the instrument called the fan, and indicates the distances answering' to any given inclination of the mirror. The arm, moreover, is fitted with asljde, so as to be capable of being set to any length of base, and this base may either be measured by a chain or may be paced,' the slide being set to the line marked “ yards” or “ paces,” as the case may be. The result is given in yards. When it is required to make an observation two men take up positions so as to form a triangle, with the object the distance of which it is desirable to ascertain. One of the two observers, by means of an optical square, places himself so as to be set at right angles with the distant object anAthe second observer, by whom the macrometer itself is used. The time taken by this system is so short that the distance of moving objects can easily be ascertained with very great accuracy. When the object to be measured is statioriary the error has been found to be less than 1 per cent.— Pall McM Gazette. A novel clock has recently been placed Tn the tower of the Albany (N. Y.) Savings Bank. By an ingenious arrangement the dial is illuminated by a gas-burner, lighted automatically at early twilight and extinguished at daylight. This is accomplished by means of the mechanism itself, without the attention of any person; and what is still more wonderful, although the time of daylight varies very greatly from month to month, the clock lights the gas at precisely the proper time from day today.

Instead of putting a gilded ball on the steeple of a new church at Vestal Center, N. Y., the cheating contractors substituted a gilded earthen jug,, put on bottom upward. One of the good church members was incensed at this discovery, and to show his contempt seized his rifle and shot—the contractors * no—shot at the jug and brought it down m fragments with the first bullet. His aim was to bring the contractor’s work where it could be inspected, and he did it. A correspondent of the Motional Baptiet, of Philadelphia, tells a romantic story of a young man named Randall, formerly a resident of New -York, Who wak captured at Syria by the Bedouins, married a sheik’s daughter, and has converted her and others of the tribe tp the Christian fhlth. * J A eadwdl trance-action—Getting out of bed’ in onW keep Add tf&Si&Otlt of a third-story window.