The Hartford republican. (Hartford, Ky.) 18??-1926, 1919-05-30
SUPERPOISON GAS
IS DEVELOPED
New Products Output Was
Ten Tons Per Day Prior
To Nov. IL.

Washington, May 24.--At the edu-
cational eXpositions, illustrating the
wartime and reconstruction activities
Of the Department of the Interior.
now being held there is being shown
under guard OF 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 Lewis
ite," later known as "Methyl," be-
cause the latter name meant moth
ing to curious persons, was being
. manufactured by the War Depart
ment at the rate of ten tons a day
when the armistice was signed.
The gas 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 of all war
gases, much more deadly than must
ard gas, which heretofore was known
by chemists as the king of poison
gases" 1t is said that ten airplane
loads of "Methyl" void have been
sufficient to destroy all life in Ber-
lin, if such extreme measures had
been necessary, and that a single
days output would have been suffi
cient to snuff out the 100000 hui |
man lives on the island of Manhattan. !
This gas was not only discovered by |
Prof. Lewis, but was also developed |
by him to a point where it was ready |
for production at the American Uni |
versity while these laboratories were |
still under the control of the Bureau
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 au
thorities. Prof. Lewis was called
from his civilian duties as professor
of chemistry at Northwestern Uni
versity, Evanston, H., and at the re-
quest of the bureau was commission
ed as captain in the ordnance depart
ment and assigned to the gas welfare
service of the Bureau of Mines,
Work is Taken Over.
While acting in this capacity, Cap
tain Lewis discovered and developed
this gas and eighteen days after the
gas work of the Bureau of 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 military
secrecy. This plant, whchi pas dub
bed BY the wOrkmen the "mouse-trap'
because in order to prevent the leak
age OF Information, it was understood !
that the men who entered would new
er leave until the war was over, was
in operation within a miraculOusly
short time, and plans were made by
the war department to have 5000
LUIS VI Niilb ulbAI hldbDAlNdi 6tlo at NAit
American front by March /, 1919.
When the armistice came the plant
was well ahead Of its production
schedule, but the opportunity had not
come for the use of the gas at the bat
tie front Thus the Germans did not
have a chance to obtain a first-hand
experience with this 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. It is declared that
among the 500 men at the plant there
was not one fatality, this immunity
being largely due to the providing
Of all employees with gas masks, pro-
tective clothing and extreme pre-
cautions.