212 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1919. 
we may overlook the fact that the addition of a small percentage of 
tungsten to the steel of cutting tools may multiply by four the 
output of a mechanic making machine-gun parts. It was not imme- 
diately obvious that the success of a gas-mask program and all the 
consequences of a failure of that program might hinge on the supply 
of coconut shells from which to make absorbent charcoal. Only 
recently has the atmosphere become our most reliable source of 
nitrates. Seaweed might be regarded as a negligible resource from 
the military standpoint, but the war called into being at San Diego 
a vast plant producing from Pacific kelps iodine, potash, and a whole 
series of organic solvents required in the powder manufacture. The 
mitsumata plant, from the bark of which the Japanese make their 
paper, is less belligerent than a humming bird, but it contributed 
the 3,000,000 paper parachutes with which our star shells were pro- 
vided. Nearly 500,000 Chinese Nuchwang dogs gave up their hides 
and fur to keep our aviators warm, and millions of Australian 
rabbits “went west” because their furry coats were needed to make 
the hats our soldiers wore. We do not go to a gun store for bird 
seed, but bird seed is none the less a military supply. The Signal 
Corps trained 15,000 carrier pigeons for service in France, and tons 
of Argentine corn, pop corn, millet, and Canada peas were shipped 
to feed them. ficidbtitary it may Be said that the pigeons delivered 
over 95 per cent of all the messages intrusted to them. 
To a layman like myself it hein to be apparent that any consid- 
eration of the relation of raw materials to military supplies involves 
some extension of commonly accepted notions as to what military 
supphes really are. 
At the beginning of 1919 the catalogue of Army supplies com- 
prised 120,000 separate items. On the day the armistice was signed 
nearly 8,000 manufacturing plants in the country were working on 
ordnance contracts, and the estimated total cost of ordnance alone 
for the equipment of the first 5,000,000 American soldiers was be- 
tween $12,000,000,000 and $13,000,000,000, and involved expenditure 
at a rate which would pay for a Panama Canal every 30 days. The 
Wool Administrator did a business’ of $2,500,000 a day, and the 
total purchases of wool reached $504,000,000. The war demand 
absorbed substantially all the wool in sight, leaving practically 
nothing for civilians, and this shortage was felt with varying degrees 
of acuteness by all the belligerents. In fact, the only country in the 
world that had an excess of wool in November, 1918, was Australia, 
which was surfeited with an accumulation of a billion’ pounds, to 
export which no shipping was available. Twenty-two million blan- 
kets were provided to keep our soldiers warm, and 100,000,000 yards 
of Melton cloth for overcoats and uniforms. In the Chicago district 
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