The Pleasantville press. (Pleasantville, N.J.) 1912-1929, 1919-06-21
Ten Tons a Day Being Made
When the Armistice Was
Signed.
Discovered BY PROF. LEWIS
Ten Airplane Loads of This Super
Poison Sufficient to Have De-
stroyed All Life in Berlin
Known as "MethyL"

Westinghouse the educational ex-
position, illustrating the wartime and
reconstruction activities of the depart
ment of the interior now being held
there is being shown under guard a
sample of the most terrible super
poison gas known, the discovery of
Prof. w. Lee Lewis while In the en-
ploy of the bureau of mines at its
American university laboratories.
This gas, formerly called "Lewisite,"
later known as "methyl," because the
latter nam meant nothing to curious
persons, was being manufactured by
the war department at the rate of ten
o a day when the armistice came.
The gas is being variously described
as "the climax of the country's
achievements in the lethal arts and
as "the most terrible instrument of
~manslaughter ever conceived" The
department itself declares that it is
the most deadly of all war gases,
much more deadly than mustard gas,
which heretofore was known by chem
lists as 1.-THE king of poison gases"
Most Deadly of All.
1t is said that ten airplane loads of
"methyl" would have been sufficient to
destroy all life in Berlin, if such ex-
IRENE measures had been necessary,
and that a single days output would
have been sufficient to snuff out the
100000 human lives on the island of
Manhattan.
This gas was not only discovered by
Professor Lewis, but was also devel-
oped by him to a point where it was
ready for production at the American
university while those laboratories
were still under the control, of the bu-
e of mines, one of the organizations
of the department of the interior.
When this work was first taken up by
the bureau in behalf of the military
authorities Professor Lewis was called
from his civilian duties as professor of
chemistry at Northwestern university,
Evanston, ILL.,, and at the request of
the bureau was commissioned as cap
tain In the ordnance department and
assigned to the gas warfare service of
h bureau of mines. While acting In
this capacity Professor Lewis dlscov-
cred and developed this gas, and IS
days after the gas work Of the bureau
of mines was transferred to the juris-
diction of the war department an IL
acre plant for it's manufacture was
started near Cleveland, o., where the
work was conducted under the strict
est military secrecy.
"Mouse Trap" Plant.
This plant, which was dubbed by the
workmen the mouse trap" because,
in order to prevent the leakage of in
formation, it was understood that the
men who entered would not leave I'M
til the war was over, was In operation
within a m~iraculously short time, and
plans were made by the war depart
ment to have 5000 tons of this most
diabolical gas at the American front
by March 1, 1919. When the armistice
came the plant was well ahead Of its
production schedule, but the opportu-
nifty had not come for the use of the
gas at the battle front. Thus the Ger
nan did not have a chance to obtain
a frst-hand experience with this most
frightful of all poison gases, of which
1t Is said that a single drop on the
hand will penetrate to the blood and
o 0 reach the heart, when it kills the
victim in great agony. 1t is declared
that among the 800 men at the plant
there was not fatality, this immu-
nifty being largely due to the providing
of all employees with gas masks, pro-
tective clothing and extreme precau-
tons in operation.