The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1920-01-30
GERMANY UNDONE
BY OWN WEAPON.
Had Sold to America Secret
Of Making Explosive
From Air.
fac NITRATE PLANT RESULTS.
Built in Eight Months 1t Con-
yinces Kaiser Of His Defeat.
Nv GARRETT SMITH.


One Of the most romantic passages
/, the secret history Of the World war
A. ,he story Of how the Ordnance De
uar,ment OF the United States Army
made n possible for America. until
then utterly lacking In ammunition
and IN facilities for making IT, to man
ufacture unlimited quantities of pow
erfuI explosives out Of air and rock.
II was largely the knowledge OF this
fac, that forced Germany to surrender
when she did.
The secret was secured from Ger
many herself. II was an open bust
ness transaction between business
men, whereby we apparently acquired
nothing more military than a process
for making a high grade fertilizer
known as eyanamld.
Frank Sherman washburn. head or
che 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
Tor their artificial production. In 1907
Ne. washburn secured In Germany
81 American rights OF the cyanamid
roKess which had been invented In
lat country.
" Turning Air into q Weapon.
~ this PROCESS afr. which Is a mix
sture Of about fourffths nitrogen gas
and one fifth oxygen. is placed In con-
taIners and subjected to pressure and
%scld until n turns TO liquid. Then
a., nitrogen Is distilled In much the
49, manner as alcohol Is separated
~ water. But before this nitrogen
tAn be used as a fertilizer II must be
combined with a chemical combination
~ lime and carbon known as calcium
carbide. produced by burning ordinary
limestone IN big rotary kilns and com.
hlning n In the electric furnace with
carbon supplied In the form OF ordi-
nary coke
Cyanamid thus produced contains
~ elements Of ammonium nitrate. one
lhe most powerful OF modern expIo-
nl8A 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-
nafaid. 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. picrlc acid and ammo
nlum nitrate. The United States was
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
raw material for ammonium nitrate.
with the exception Of a small produc-
lion OF nitrogen from the cOkIng of
coal The Chilean supply was $500
miles away from New York City by
way OF the Panama Canal, and the
route BY way Of the Straits OF Magel.
Ian IL nearly twice as long.
A Record Building Operation.
shortly after the war began In Eu-
rope the German government entered
into the hxatlon OF air nitrogen for
military explosives on a vast scale. II
was not. however. until the fall of 1917
That the United States government
took II up.
The Ordnance Department asked Mr.
Wkshburn's company to organize a
NNpsidiary corporation, known az the
81 Qates Corporation, with Mr.
ifn as president, TO act as
h8ent ~ he government for the con.
struc' N and operation Of the air nj.
tratem plant at Muscle Shoals, Ala.
eama- This corporation provided the
nesigns erected the equipment I'm the
fhemicai plants and supervised all the
OF work. II also operated the
saiab = town and the plant Other
work sublet 70 several of the hes,
Adown organizations In the Unitea
States. Westinghouse Church Kerr
Company built the plant buildings tba
eainp. the permanent city and utilities
The J. q. White Engineering Corpora.
ton designed and built tha n,trot,,
acid plant. The NJ W. Kellogg Com.
pany furnished the piping and hu,I,
the chimneys. On February 10 1e1s
ground was broken. and eight months
and eight days later the 100000 oln
Muscle shoals plant began producinc