Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1918-02-22
NOTHING is WASTED IN WAR
BUT NOISE.

DUl MUSE
The only thing that is wasted on
the battlefield is noise. As yet the
British army has not found way to
conserve that, Many other by-prod-
ucts of war, are being utilized, in
Guiding odors. A Staff correspon-
dent of the Brookly Eagle writes
"From Somewhere in France" as fol-
lows:
What! Don't you believe it? Listen
to this: Yesterday | made visit to
the British army horse hospital near
A.. When the inspection was
over we passed the fertilizer pit. The
odor was pretty strong.
"Whcn we get to the winward,"
said the major. "I'll tell you some
thing"
We hurried past to the northwest
corner. There the major stopped and
said:
at occurred to the staff some time
ago that this refuse could be turned
to account. An expert YVES called in
for consultation. He then made GER
tain borings and certain analytical
experiments, whercupon he construct
ed caisson. planted it deep down in
the pit and then ran pipe from it to
our camp kitchen. We now cook with
the gas. 1t works fine"
To-day have visited the great ar
my salvage plant ut c.. Anoth-
er amiable major was my guide.
"I'll first take you to the boiler
room," he said. He opened Il door,
and down under tac steam boiler |
saw territorials in uniform feed the
fire with Il mixture of shavings and
shocbuttonS.
"This is the refuse from our car
penter shop, and the solcs of shoes
that can no longer be repaired" said
the major. "The uppers We make in
to boot-laces. This mixture makes
excellent heat. We never nave to i'm
port any coal from England. The en-
CINE runs dynamo, which gives our
light and our power"
Gangs of Chinese, Egyptians, Ka-
frs, and kurds are employed to sort
out the battlefield waste ard then
load it into railroad cars Dressing
stations, hospital reserve de-
pots, and training grounds ere also
comber for waste material. The ma
jor called the correspondents atten-
ton to a yard full of tin cans, oil
cans, ammunition kegs, shell splint-
ers, empty cartridges, and crushed
steel helmets. All t::is goes to the
smeltcr. The writer continues.
Alongside the pile steam roller
was putting to and fro. Like a Jug
gernaut it was ilattening out the bull
ky tin cans
"That works very WELL" said the
major. cat one time this pile was
about ten times what it is now. The
tin cans were so bulky we couldn't
find freight cars enough to hold all
OF them. Now we run the steam roll
er over them first.
~ gang of German prisoners was
at work shoveling the flattened cans
into a freigh car on siding. Before
they are thrown into the smelter, the
lead, the block tin, and other by
products are melted off and careful
ly used.
The rags were the fotsam and Jet
sam of the ttle-feld-caps, coats,
stockings, underwear, knapsacks, and
straps, buckles, ETC., such things as
men leave behind them when they
go over the top or Ego west" Equip
ment doesn't then matter. But later
on khaki rags bring real money and
are made into new uniforms. 1t is n
rotation of raw material.
From the ragpicker's lane we
stumbled into the carpenters shop,
where packing-cases from the Unit
ed States, whether they have contain
ed heavy guns from Pittsburg or
hobnailed shoes from Boston are
made into portable barracks, tent
floors, Stats, for trench flooring, and
smaller packing-cases, and Mt last the
smallest strips are sawed into tent
peg. The waste is then shoveled
into the boiler-pit, mixed with the
shoe-button and fed into the furnace.
When used as toasting forks, bay
onets are liable to lose their temper.
In this case they are sent back to
England for retcrmpering, but if it
! is merely matter of sharpening they
are attended to in the armory and
sent back to the front. The bicycle
shop overhauls and repairs an aver
age of five hundred machines each
month, and the salvage does not end
here, for the writer says:
In another shop I saw the moss