known height and the stadia used. General Percin gives many useful applications of this simple device.
Various range-finders have been produced in countries outside the British Isles which, as they are the outcome of similar necessity and required for identical purposes, naturally resemble, more or less, the instruments already described.
Field artillery officers of all countries usually claim their gun to be their best range-finder. This may be another way of saying that a durable, one-man range-finder, capable of instantaneously finding modern artillery ranges with accuracy, has yet to be invented. In France the “télémétre Goutier" for field artillery, a two-man instrument, corresponds with the Watkin mekometer.
The “Gautier," used by the Italian field artillery, is a one-man instrument, but requires a measured base-line. The “Aubry” telemeter, used by some of the Russian batteries in Manchuria, is very portable, but requires a measured base-line, and a slide rule to find the range. In the French and Russian infantry the “prismetélémetre," the invention of Colonel Souchier, is used. It is small, very light, and can be carried in the same manner as field-glasses. French machine guns are ranged by the “télémetre instantané," an instrument of the Barr and Stroud type, with an aluminium base 1 metre in length.
For work in the field the modern tendency abroad is to follow Barr and Stroud. In Germany, Hahn, Goerz and Zeiss have produced handy and fairly light short base range-finders, in outward appearance more or less similar to Marindin's instrument.
The Zeiss range-finder, however, depends on the stereoscopic principle. It is open to the objection that best results can only be obtained with it by persons who are capable of seeing stereoscopically, and also, in individuals possessing this particular gift (a comparatively small proportion of the human race), stereoscopic vision may vary in power from day to day. Nevertheless the Zeiss rangefinder has found favour in many countries, notably as the infantry range-finder in Italy. For naval and harbour defence purposes the Barr and Stroud range-finder is very largely used throughout the world. In Italy a Barr and Stroud instrument, with the large base of 5 metres, was in 1908 under trial for coast artillery.
Of the depression range-finder type in France, “le télémetre Dévé” is used at all heights of about 70 ft. and upwards.
Brazil possesses, in the invention of Captain Mario Netto, an excellent range-finder. It is supplied to the harbour defences of that country. It is accurate, handy, easily transported and re erected where required, and is not affected by the concussion of heavy gun-fire. The German coast range-finder of Hahn closely resembles the earlier Watkin instruments. In Italy the Amici instrument is being replaced by the Braccialine. The latter inventor has also supplied his country with a horizontal base instrument.
After extended competitive trials in the U.S.A. the Lewis depression range-tinder has been found superior to others presented to the Range-Finding Committee, and is recommended for adoption. It is a neat, workmanlike instrument, and gave an average mean error of 24 yds. in the ranges recorded during the trials. The maximum range was 12,000 yds. and the height of base 13512 ft.
The details of position-finders abroad, as in the British service, are confidential, and but little is published of the “télémetre par recoupement” of the French coast batteries, or the “telegoniometro Sollier" of Italy. In the United States, B. A. Fiske has ingeniously adapted the principle of the Wheatstone bridge in the construction of the position-finder which bears his name.
See de Marré, Instruments pour la mesure de distances (Paris, 1880); Abridgments of Specifications, Class 97, Patent Office, London; Handbooks and Instructions for Range-Finder, published by the British War Office; Barr and Stroud, Proc. Inst. Mech. Eng., 30th Jan. 1896; Zeiss pamphlet by Carl Zeiss of Jena, which gives a candid statement of the difficulty attending the stereoscopic principle, &c. (F. M. L.*)
RANGER, HENRY WARD (1858- ), American artist, was born at Syracuse, New York, in January 1858. He became a prominent landscape and marine painter, much of his work being done in Holland, and showing the influence of the modern Dutch school. He became a National Academician (1906), and a member of the American Water Color Society. Among his paintings are, “Top of the Hill,” Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; and “East River Idyll,” Carnegie Institute, Pittsburg.
RANGOON, the capital of Burma, situated on the left bank of the Hlaing or Rangoon river, 21 m. from the sea, in 16° 47΄ N. and 96° 13΄ E. In 1880 the city was detached from the main district, called Hanthawaddy, and formed into a separate district, with an area of 19 sq. m. Pop. (1901) 234,881, of whom just half were immigrants from India. Rangoon, from being a comparatively insignificant place, has within less than half a century risen to be the third seaport in British India, being surpassed only by Calcutta and Bombay in the volume of its trade. During the busy season of rice-export, which lasts from the end of December to the middle of May, the pool forming the port of Rangoon presents almost as crowded a scene as the Hugli at Calcutta. Rangoon has the double advantage of being situated near the sea and being served by a great river navigable for 900 m. behind it. The approach to the port is not difficult at any season of the year. With flat and shelving shores, the shoal-banks off the main mouths of the delta form the chief danger to shipping, and this is guarded against by a good service of lighthouses and lightships. For a length of seven or eight miles the river is from a mile to a mile and a quarter in breadth, so that there is plenty of accommodation for shipping. Here is concentrated the whole of the rich trade of the delta of the Irrawaddy. Great part of the river frontage is occupied with rice-mills, teak Wharves and similar buildings. The rice exported from Rangoon in 1904-5 amounted to 28 million cwt. with a value of nearly 7 million sterling.
The city is dominated by the great golden pile of the Shwe Dagôn pagoda, the centre of Burmese religious life. Rising to a height of 368 ft., this magnificent building is loftier than St Paul's Cathedral in London, and its size is greatly enhanced by the fact that it stands on an eminence that is itself 168 ft. above the level of the city. It is covered with pure gold from base to summit, and once in every generation this gold is renewed by public subscription. Moreover, benefactions to this pagoda are one of the favourite methods of acquiring religious merit among the Burmese. The pagoda itself has no interior. It is a solid stupa of brick, in the form of a cone, raised over a relic chamber; and the place of worship is the surrounding platform with a perimeter of nearly 1400 ft.
Though traditionally a site of great sanctity, Rangoon owes its first importance to its rebuilding in 1753 by Alompra, the founder of the Burmese monarchy, who gave it the present name of Yan Kon, “the end of the war.” An English factory was opened here about 1790. On the outbreak of the first Burmese War, in 1824, it was taken by the British, but subsequently restored. It was captured a second time in 1852, and passed along with the province of Pegu into the hands of the British. It was destroyed by fire in 1850, and serious conflagrations occurred again in 1853 and 1855. Since the last devastation Rangoon has undergone considerable improvements. Until 1874, when the existing municipality was constituted, the administration was in the hands of the local government, which devoted itself to raising the centre of the town above the river level, providing land fit for building purposes from the original swamp, which was flooded at spring-tides, and making roads, bridges, culverts and surface drains. In 1892 was introduced the sewage system, which now includes 6 m. of mains, 22 m. of gravitating sewers, 434 m. of air mains and 44 Shone's ejectors. The water supply, drawn from the Victoria Lake, 5 m. distant, has recently been supplemented by an additional reservoir, 10 m. farther off. The city proper of Rangoon with the Kemmendine suburb is laid out on the block system, each block being 800 by 860 ft., intersected with regular streets. In the extensions to the east and west it has been decided to have no streets less than 50 ft. wide. The roads are still lighted by kerosene oil lamps, but electric lighting is in contemplation. Electric tramways run to Pazundaung in one direction and to Alon and Kemmendine in the other, as well as to the foot of the Shwe Dagôn Pagoda hill. Latterly the erection of masonry buildings, instead of plank houses, has been insisted on in the central portion of the city, with the result that fires have decreased in number. There are two large maidans, or commons, which are used as military parade grounds and for racing, as well as for golf links and other purposes of amusement. There is a garden round the Phayre Museum, managed by the Agri-Horticultural Society, and an extremely pretty and wellkept garden in the cantonments under the pagoda. Beyond these lie the Royal Lake and Dalhousie Park, with 160 acres of water and 205 acres of well-laid-out and well-timbered park land. Dalhousie Park has recently been, greatly extended, and the new Victoria Park, declared open on the
