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Show THE CITIZEN 16 the community afire with his genius while almost setting the office afire traveling more than 100 miles, it came to earth. In order to preserve the secret the spectators were told that the pilot had escaped by means of a parachute. No wonder Colonel Gouraud should say that the next war would be the most savage and brutal of all, although we may cherish some faint hope that the knowledge of the existence of Lewisite will act as a determent lo those who may still meditate a breach of the worlds peace. Another new weapon of war that owes its inception to an American is the Loening aeroplane, said to be so raidically different from anything now in use as to establish a new standard with which all military aeroplanes will have to conform. It would have been used in the early part of the with his breath. But the good old days are gone and journalism is denied the immunities of genius and even free passes on the railroads. INVENTIONS THAT WERE TOO LATE (Continued from Page 12.) eminent was preparing literally to were We smother the German army. all of had been the that gases making of the used by any combatants, and in addition we had Lewisite. We had in preparation, too, huge mobile guns for hurling shells filled With gas to Incredible distances, and, even more wonderful, we had all but perfected and were preparing to manufacture automatic apparatus for dropping containers of this new poison from the air, at a distance of a hundred miles or more from our base of operations. The secret of the ocmposition of Lewisite was carefully guarded. It was known as G34," a nomenclature that leaves much to be desired from the point of view of the curious. There were only a few officials who knew anything at all about it, and still fewer who knew anything of its strength or purpose: Lewisite is described as "an oily liquid of an amber color and the odor of geranium blossoms. It is highly explosive, and on contact with water it bursts into flame. Let loose in the open air, it into a gas which instantly kills on the inhalation of the smallest amount that can by any means be measured. A single drop of the liquid on the hand causes death in a few hours, the victim dying In fearful agony. The pain on contact is acute and almost unendurable. It acts by penetrating through the skin or, in the gaseous form, through the lung tissue, poisoning the blood, affecting in turn the kidneys, the lung tissues, and the heart. When the armistice was signed the United States had on hand one hundred and fifty tons of this stuff, enough to poison half the population of the country if the containers were opened at strategic points. Today there is none in existence except a few carefully guarded samples ni the possession of the Bureau of Mines dn-fus- es TAYLOR VHOLMES "THREE BLACK EVES" IN " TA YLOR HOLMES THREE BLACK EYES," A PROHIBITION COMEDY STARTING AT THE CASINO SUNDAY and the War Department: even the buildings in which it was made and the machinery used in its manufacture have been utterly destroyed. The utmost precautions were taken to preserve the secret of Lewisite. A special factory was built in Ohio. The eight hundred workmen enployed in its manufacture were under agreement to remain in confinement during the duration of the war or the contin-in- g need of their services. They were allowed to write letters, presumably censored, but all letters intended for them wrere delivered at a special box of the Cleveland postoffice. They had to work long hours, under great pressure, and they were exposed to deadly risks. But not a single man lost his life by misadventure. There was only one death, and that was from influenza. Special masks were designed for the use of the workmen, the ordinary gas masks being wholly ineffective: With the war over, all this labor went for nothing except to leave in the possession of the War Department the secret of the most lethal weapon of offense yet devised. To keep the secret from jiiaiiaiiaiiBiiaiiaiiaiiaiiBiiBiiBiiBiiBiiBiiaiiaiiBiiBiiaiisiisiiBiiBiiaiiauaiiaiiBiiaiiBiiBiiBiiBiiBiiaiiBiiaiiaMBiiBiiBiiaiiaiiaiiaiiBiiBiisiiaiiBiiaiiai' s3 s Thomas Insurance & Investment Company s m s s Insurance Of All Kinds 1 1 5 5 5 Telephone Wasatch 3164 Boyd Park Bldg,, Salt Lake City I 1 s tllllllllllllllllllllltlllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllUIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIlIlIIIHIIIIIIIIIIlllllllllllIIIIIIIIIIIIIIllllllllllllllllllllllllllllIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIlllllllllllt I Continental Life Insurance Company ' 1 S31,000,000 Insurance SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH . in Force I I I $2,000,000 Invested in the I Intermountain Region The Company of Satisfied 'Policy Holders TllllUIIIMUIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIHIIIIIIIIinilllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllltlllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllMIIIIIIIIIIIIMIII? ??? prying eyes that might deduce it from the arrangement of the plant, the character of the machinery, or some traces of the substance itself or its components, the entire system of laboratories and barracks was destroyed In less than three montns after the armistice. The stock in hand, loaded in cast-iro- n containers, was placed on a train and sent through on special schedule to the seaboard, a guard of soldiers constituting the whole crew except the engine driver. At Baltimore the containers were placed on a ship, and, fifty miles out at sea, at a point where the Atlantic Ocean is three miles deep, they were- gently lowered overside. Time and rust will release their lethal contents, the chemical action of the sea water will neutralize the poison, and all that will remain of Lewisite will be the samples In Washington and the sealed formula. Lewisite was not only to be pro- jected from guns specially made for the purpose, but it was also to be dropped from automatic airplanes, that is to say airplanes that could be operated without a pilot and that would release their deadly cargo at the exact time and place intended: This was the automatic airplane, a de- vice which was kept so secret that even six months after the signing of the armistice only a few of the higher officials of the War Department knew of its existence, and most of them did not understand the principle of its operation. Only one of these machines had been finished, but its success proved the possibility of constructing cheaply and speedily a fleet of airplanes that could be flown without having a human being on board and which could be relied upon to drop bombs of poison gas at a distance or fifty or more, miles from their starting-poin- t, and to drop these bombs within half o mile of the point previously determined upon as their objective. The diffusive power of Lewisite is so great that to set It free within half a mile of the enemy is almost as effective as dropping it (in the midst of his forces. Half a dozen bombs of Lewisite, exploded to windward of the city of Berlin, would have killed the entire population of the German capital. And by the use of the automatic airplane all danger to the attacking forces is eliminated. The worst that could happen would be to have the planes brought down by the enemy, who would get the surprise of his life when the Lewisite gas began to circulate in his vicinity. three-hundred-pou- f.MllllMIIIllllllIIlllilln:lllllllMlllllllllllltlllllllll'llllMIIIIIIlllliailllllllllllllllllllllHIllllllllllM; ! present year but for the coming of the armistice: nd The automatic airplane was subjected to severe trials at Dayton, Ohio. Without a pilot it circled over the city four times and then after The tiny Loening monoplane, thirty-tw- o feet across the wings, and weighing with its full military load and two passengers, only 2608 pounds, made a ground speed of 143.5 miles an hour on its official test; 138.2 miles at 6500 feet elevation. The French Spads record is 135 miles at the same altitude; the British Sopwith's, 131; only the Italian S. V., with its 142 miles an hour, exceeds this. The wings of the Loening plane are attached to the top of the fuselage and they are cut away so that the pilot, who sits between them, has a clear view through a very large arc, while the observers vision is almost completely unobstructed. And in this little machine, for the first time, was solved the problem of making an airplane carry a load equal to its own weight; the bare machine weighs but 1300 pounds. The average carrying capacity of airplanes is about 50 per cent of the weight of the machine. In the next war America will at least be able to begin with a more efficient type of fighting planes than any of the contestants had in the war just ended. - . There were many small inventions one might almost call them tricks that would certainly have played their part in the war had it continued. For example, there was an aeroplane contrivance by which the pilot could use both hands to navigate his machine while operating his gun with his mouth. There was also a shell detector that at a range of four miles would give notice of an approaching shell nineteen seconds before its arrival, thus allowing time for every one to seek shelter. There was also a sound range for detecting the exact position of enemy guns, and this wa's actually used to such good effect that 103 guns were found by its use and destroyed in a single day. But perhaps the paper hand grenade was one of the most remarkable of the new inventions: Nor did we have a chance to give a fair trial in action to one of the most amazing of "Yankee tricks, "t the hand grenade made of paper. Instead of relying for its killing power upon fragmentation, like a shell, its deadly effect was produced by the flame and concussion of the explosion itself. Fragmentation grenades threm n by hands can be used safely only from behind a parapet or from a trench, as the fragments are as likely to fly back and kill the men who threw the grenades as to damage the enemy. The offensive grenade made of paper, however, is sure to kill any man within three yards of the spot where it explodes, but Is perfectly safe beyond that distance, and so can be used in open warfare. San Francisco Argonaut. j(i . |
