The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-06-17

new use by the simple expedent of be- ing fitted with pigeon hole compartments.
 In conjunction with the machine shop there is a shoe shop and a leather shop, where broken saddles are mended, and where the straps for artillery wagons, rifles and knapsacks are put into order once more It is the exception rather than the rule that any piece of apparatus used at the front is damaged so badly that it cannot be mended here or that it has to be sent back to Germany.
 In point of interest to the casual vis- itor, the prize of the division headquar- ters is the "Sammelstelle'' or collection point-the junk pile containing the sweep ings of the battlefield would be a better name-where every conceivable object from both of rubber to broken bayonets and cartridge shells is collected and sort ed out
 The knapsack of every wounded sol died first or last finds its way to this big building and there is subjected to tine scrutiny of junk experts The cart ridges that remain are laid to one side, to be reapportioned to some other fighter The drinking flasks or bottles are sim ilarly weeded out and the clothes that still are fit to wear are placed in piles according to their character.
 The bayonets go to one department, where they are carefully cleaned and put in shape for again. The rifles they include not only German but the French, Belgian. English and Russian guns-are thoroughly overhauled and oiled and come out looking like new. Every piece of equipment that still has value is renovated.
 Battlefields Swept Clean
 After every battle in which the Ger mans have been victorious the field is literally secured, and all the junk is transported to headquarters. Scores of ripped and torn auto tires are collected and sent to an establishment where the rubber can be utilized in the making of new tubes.
 big laundry establishment with a ca- pacity of over 100000 garments in less than a month cleans old clothes after they have been repaired and puts them into shape for further use by new sol diers or by old troops whose supply has been exhausted.
 A spur of the railroad track runs di- rectly to the end of the "Sammestellle' and carts away to Germany huge quan- titles of scrap that has every appearance of being worthless but which later is to appear in newly manufactured form. Not one thing with any possible value is wasted.
 The division headquarters very natu- rally has not only the hospital facli- ties that are common to most German cities but also medicarnent headuuar ters In wholesale drug establishment of almost staggering size there are stored some 100000 marks worth of medicine and medical instruments for use in the field hospitals
 Volunteer and professional nurses pre- pare some 1S.O00 yards of bandages a day, which are shipped off to the front in compact packages. The establishment maintains 15 mounted Altering plants that are shifted from point to point along the front and prepare daily some 10000 liters of water for the soldiers
 There are also moveable Roentgen Ray machines which can be taken to the front for use in desperate cases. Toxins ano serums in little globules are on hand in great quantities and the equipment of the plant is so complete that there are even cases of snow goggles for the use of the soldiers on sunny days in winter.
 As an adjunct to the wholesale drug establishment there is a soap factory with a weekly capacity of 55,000 kilograms a week-so large that not only are four armies supplies but the civil populations of the city as we'll There is a disin- fecting establishment where both soldiers and their clothes are purified and where the long Red Cross hospital trains after use are switched in and sterilized and fumigated