Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1923-05-17
Beating Swords Into
PlOwShareS in Salvage
WAR EXPLOSIVES TURNED TO
GOOD USE IN INDUSTRY
AND AGRICULTURE

The salvage and utilization of sur.
plus war explosives in peace-time pur.
suits in the United States has been
one Of the great economic benefits of
the aftermath of the war, according
to DR.. Charles E. Munroe, chief ex-
plosive chemist of the Bureau of
Mines, in statement made by him
Government agencies alone, DR..
Munroe says, have distributed, for
their own use and for uses under
their auspices, many million pounds
of such explosives during the. last
four years, compared with none be-
fore that.
These agencies include the Bureau
of Public Roads, the Reclamation Ser
vice, the Indian Service, and the Nat
ional Parks, and thousands of pounds
of the explosives have been used in
the construction of the Alaskan Gov
eminent Railroad, in Panama Canal
Zone work, and in numerous river
projects.
AS time goes on, DR.. Munroe said,
the people who have been using
these wartime explosives will realize
more and more the benefits to be
derived from their use, in highway
construction and repairing, n ditch
digging, in drainage work, and in
land clearing on cut-pver stump
lands. Eventually there will be a
larger demand for explosives as labor
savers in such work and the consum-
ption will go way beyond the present
work. Having once used explosives in
industrial work, people will always
want to use them. AS result the
whole explosives industry of the coun-
try will eventually greatly benefit, to
say nothing Of the direct. Immediate
benefit to all of the people, by reason
of the labor saved.
The Bureau of Mines made many
tests to determine what to do with
these explosives at the end of the
war, resulting in a program of dis
tribution now being carried on, which
has saved hundreds of thousands of
dollars. Dr. Munroe, who is one of the
country's leading explosive engineers
Mines in which he says:
The use of these surplus explosives
has made a report to the Bureau of
in Industrial blasting seems now to-
be an obvious means for their econo-
mical utilization, but it was by no
means so obvious when first pro-
posed following the armstice Author
tiles differed widely in their opinion
on the matter. Those who believed
that military explosives were insult
able for industrial blasting could
point to the we'll known fact that
although the explosive properties of
substances such as picric acid and
T. N. T. had been known for years
prior to the war, yet they had not
entered into use as industrial blast
ing agents. Investigation had to be
resorted to as a means of determin-
ing the facts, and the larger part of
the allotments made have been used
in industrial blasting, on a great var
iety of projects, with entire accept
ance
One interesting feature of the inves-
LEGATIONS made was in the case of
agriculture Estimates made by the U
S. Soil Survey and various colleges of
agriculture showed that the value of
land in the Upper Mississippi River
States alone would be increased by
more than $1,OOO,OOO,OOO when lands
there were cleared of stumps and re
claimed This work is now going on
as the result of the distribution of
the explosives, ordered by Congress.