The Glenwood post., 1919-05-31
WORST POISON
GAS Invented
MethyI... Climax Of the Coun-
tIy's Achievement in Art
Of Wholesale Slaughter
VICIOUS war WEAPON

Washington, May 2s.-At the educa-
tional exposition, illustrating the war
time and reconstruction activities of
the department of the interior, now
being held there is being shown under
guard sample of the most terrible
superpoison gas known, the discovery
of Prof. W. Lee Lewis, while in the
employ of the bureau of mines at its
American University laboratories
This gas, formerly called "Lewisite,
later known as ''Methyl," because the
latter name meant nothing to curious
persons, was being manufactured by
the war department at the rate Of ten
tons a day when the armistice came.
The gas is being variously described
as "the climax of the country's
achievement in the lathal arts' and as
." the most terrible instrument of man
slaughter ever conceived. The de-
partment itself declares that it is the
most deadly Of all war gases, much
more deadly than mustard gas, which
heretofore was known by chemists as
60 the king of poison gases" 1t il said
that ten airplaine loads of "Methyl'
would have been sufficient to destroy
all life in Berlin, if such extreme meas
ures had been necessary, and that
single days output would have been
sufficient to snuff out the four million
human lives on the island of Manhat-
tan.
This gas was not only discovered by
Prof. Lewis, but was also developed
by him to point where it was ready
for production at the American Uni
versity while those laboratories were
still under the control of the bureau OF
department of the interior. When this
work was first taken up by the bureau
in behalf of the military authorities,
Prof 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 captain in the
ordnance department and assigned to
the gas welfare service of the bureau
of mines. While acting in this capaci
ty Prof. Lewis discovered and devel-
oped this gas, and eighteen days after
the gas work of the bureau oe mines
was transferred to the jurisdiction of
the war department an eleven-acre
plant for its manufacture was started
near Cleveland, Ohio, where the work
was conducted under the strictest mill
tary secrecy. This plant was dubbed
by the workmen the "mouse-trap' be-
cause, in order to prevent the leakage
Of information, it was understood that
the men who entered would not leave
until the war was over. was in opera
tion within a miraculously short time,
and plans were made by the war de-
partment to have 5000 tons of this
hioob 'i"poiieal Sdo az bhe AMERICAN
front by March /, 1919. When the
armistice came the plant was well shead
of its production schedule; but the op-
portuniy had not come for the use of
the gas at the battle front. Thus the
| Germans did not have chance to oh
tain a first hand experience with the
most frightful of all poison gases, OF
which it is said that a single drop on
the hand will penetrate to the blood
and soon reach the heart, when it kills
the victim in great agony. 1t is de-
clared that among the 800 men at the
plant there was not one fatality, this
immunity being largely due to the pro-
viding of all employees with gas masks.
protective clothing and extreme pre-
| cautions in Operation