NATURAL RESOURCES LITTLE. 213 
alone hundreds of shirt factories were making flannel shirts on 
Government contracts, and throughout the country some 4,000 in- 
spectors were assigned to garment factories. 
Of cotton textiles we procured in all over 800,000,000 square yards. 
The figure is impressive as it stands. It becomes preposterous when 
a brief calculation shows that if laid out in a 1-yard width 65 globes 
the size of the earth might be placed upon it. Among the items which 
make up the total were 100,000,000 yards of denim, 120,000,000 yards 
of webbing, 140,000,000 yards of gauze, and nearly 300,000,000 yards 
of cotton duck. An especial interest attaches to cotton webbing be- 
cause of its very general substitution for leather in countless details 
of equipment, as cartridge belts, suspenders, gun slings, and horse 
bridles. So great was the demand that ultimately 150 plants were 
engaged in webbing production, and there was a very serious shortage 
throughout the war of machine knitting needles for webbing, hosiery, 
and gloves, these needles having formerly been made in Germany. 
As an example of the relation of design to emergency production it 
may be pointed out that there were not enough machines in the 
United States to knit one-tenth of the seamless woolen gloves re- 
quired, in consequence of which the gloves had ultimately to be rede- 
signed and made from knit fabric, cut to pattern and sewed. These 
did not wear well, and it became necessary to supplement them with 
another glove of canton flannel with a leather palm to be worn outside 
the woolen glove. 
In the variety and multiplicity of its applications to military 
requirements cotton stands forth as a basic raw material comparable 
at least in its importance to steel. It was ubiquitous and protean. 
It flowed in an unceasing stream through thousands of factories and 
plants to reappear in camp and field and hospital as underwear, 
clothing, tents, bed rolls, and sheeting; barrack bags, coal bags, and 
mail bags; cargo and wagon covers; mask fabrics, tire and hose 
fabrics. It functioned high above the field of battle as balloon fabric 
and the cloth for airplane wings. It constituted the base of all our 
smokeless powder and of the dope for airplane wings. It supplied 
both the base and the coating material for the artificial leather 
essential to automobile construction. To the surgeon and the 
wounded man it was indispensable as gauze, absorbent cotton, and 
collodion, and for them it provided in one year 574,000,000 yards of 
bandages. Supplemented with rubber and paraffin, it insulated the 
40,000 miles of outpost wire required to satisfy the monthly needs of 
the Signal Corps. The millions of steel helmets were lined and 
meshed with cotton twine. In the form of celluloid film cotton bore 
the countless pictures which carried information of vital importance 
and registered the story of the war. 
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