248 THE NEW WORLD OF SCIENCE 



the exclusiveness of your knowledge do you if Germany wins 

 and takes everything, down to the clothes on your back, ex- 

 clusiveness included? Better to tell your competitors your 

 secrets than to run the risk of beggary and blows for yourselves 

 and dishonor for your women." 



The case of France is the most striking. Her northeastern 

 iron district, her most important, was overwhelmed by the first 

 German onrush, and she thus lost about 81 per cent, of her pig- 

 iron capacity and 63 per cent, of her steel-making capacity. 

 But in about two and one-half years she nearly tripled the 

 number of her blast furnaces, and increased that of her open 

 hearth furnaces by about 60 per cent. During the war she 

 increased her annual production of rifles 290 fold, of machine 

 guns 70 fold, of 150 mm. shells 225 fold, and of 75 mm. shells 

 15 fold, the production of these last reaching "the enormous 

 number of 200,000 a day. Far as these numbers are beyond 

 our mental grasp, they suffice to correct the impression that it 

 is by necessity that France has usually devoted herself to the 

 exquisite perfection of her products rather than to their quan- 

 tity. Her gigantic output of munitions, for her own army, 

 for ours, and for those of five other Allied nations shows that, 

 in habitually devoting herself most strikingly to products beyond 

 the skill of all other people, she is following choice and not 

 necessity. 



The part played by an illustrious French ironmaster, Dr. 

 Schneider, may well be recorded. He controls about 250,000 

 workmen at Le Creusot and his many other steel works, ship- 

 yards, iron and coal mines, optical works, machine tool works, 

 electrical works, Diesel engine works, locomotive works, bridge 

 and other works. He supplied about three-quarters of all the 

 artillery used in the war by the French, including the Schneider 

 2 1 -inch guns. He provided the American Army with about 

 half of its heavy artillery, and all of its field artillery, besides 

 sending much to the Belgian, Italian, Roumanian, Russian and 

 Serbian Armies, and making enormous quantities of the most 

 varied war products, tanks, aircraft and machine guns. This 



