The Aberdeen weekly. [volume] (Aberdeen, Miss.) 1878-1933, 1920-01-02
GERMANY UND0NE
BY own WEAPON
Had Sold to America Secret
of Making Explosive
From Air.
BIG NITRATE PLANT RESULTS.
Built in Eight Months 1t Con-
vnces Kaiser of His Defeat.
BIG NITRATE PLANT RESULTS.
BY GARRETT SMITH.

One Of the most romantic passages
In The secret history OF the World War
is the story Of how the Ordnance De-
partment OF the United States Army
made IL possible for America, until
then utterly lacking In ammunition
| and in facilities for making tt. To man
ufacture unlimited quantities of pow
erful explosives out OF air and rock.
1t was largely the knowledge of this
fact that forced Germany 10 surrender
when she did
The secret was secured from Ger
many herself. 1t was an open busi-
ness transaction between business
men. whereby we apparently acquired
nothing more military than a process
for making a high grade fertilizer
known as cyanamid.
Frank Sherman Washburn. head OF
the group Of business men who bought
this process. conceived the germ of
the idea in the early nineties while In
South America as consulting engineer
In connection with the production and
shipping OF Chilean nitrate of soda.
Nitrogen compounds are an essential
part Of all commercial fertilizers The
only available natural nitrate deposits
in large quantities are in Chile. This
supply was diminishing. Germany.
which had been taking about one
third OF the Chilean nitrates. was al
ready experimenting with processes
for their artificial production. In 1907
-INl,, II
the American rights Of the cyanamid
process which had been invented in
that country.
Turning Air into Weapon.
BY this process air. which is a mix
ture of about four-ffths nitrogen gas
and one-fifth oxygen. is placed in con
tainers and subjected TO pressure and
cold until il turns to liquid Then
the nitrogen is distilled in much the
same manner as alcohol is sepa "a ted
frosu water. But before this nitrogen
can be used as fertilizer II must be
comjinad with chemical combination
of lime and carbon known as calcium
carbide, produced by burning ordinary
limestone in big rotary kilns and com
bining il in the electric furnace with
carbon supplied in the form Of ordi-
nary coke
Cyanamid thus produced contains
the elements of ammonium nitrate. one
nf the most powerful Of modern explo-
sIves. BY one process ammonia is eX-
tracted from the Cyanamid. BY an
other process nitric acid Is extracted
from another batch of this same sya-
namd Then the ammonia and nitric
acid are combined and there you have
ammonium nitrate ready for packing
Into shells with INT.
There are three kinds OF explosives
used for bursting shells in modern
warfare-TNT, picric acid and ammo
equally deficient in raw materials and
plants for manufacturing all three of
these explosives. Under the best of
conditions the cost of either INT or
nitric acid is about two and one-half
the cost OF ammonium nitrate But
the United States was wholly depend
ent upon Chilean nitrate of soda as a
raw material for ammonium nitrate,
with the exception of small produc-
ton of nitrogen from the coking of
coal. The Chilean supply was 400
miles away from New York City by
way Of the Panama Canal, and the
route by way of the Straits of Magel-
Ian is nearly twice Is long.
A Record Building Operation.
Shortly after the war began in Eu-
rope rho German povernruent entered