er the English mined the German trenches for a distance of several
miles and blew out the strongholds, using more than 1,000,000 pounds of
high explosives.

One of the great 42-centimeter guns of the Germans is said to have used
a charge of guncotton involving the use of a full bale of cotton to make
the explosive--and a bale of cotton contains 500 pounds. The shrapnel of
the heavy field artillery of the United States contains 717 balls or
bullets about the size of a common marble, and the shell, so timed that
it explodes just before it touches the ground, scatters the bullets or
balls over an area estimated at one yard for every bullet, or more than
700 yards. With thousands of such shells being rained over the
entrenchments is it any wonder that the list of wounded and killed was
great?

Thousands were killed by poisoned gases, and where they were not killed
a very large percentage of those affected suffered consequences which
rendered them unfit for battle--turned them into invalids. The gas bombs
produced hemorrhages of the lungs and bowels in thousands of cases and
left those who inhaled the fumes in an anemic and permanently disabled
condition. And what of the thousands who succumbed to fevers, and who
because of the terrible shock became mental and physical wrecks and were
made unfit for further duty on the actual firing lines?

A MATTER OF DOLLARS AND CENTS.

When it comes to the cost in dollars and cents it is possible to tell
something of what they mean with reference to war construction and
maintenance, although no one can estimate what it represents in
destruction. No one has yet devised an accounting system to determine
the percentage of "depreciation" through wear and tear on guns and
devices that cost thousands of dollars each, but everybody knows that
guns wear out and that some of the larger ones have a very decided limit
on the number of times they can be fired without being rebored or
rifled.

Railroads which have taken years to build and develop have been
destroyed, telephone and telegraph lines put out of commission, great
castles and temples razed, works of art burned, whole cities devastated,
green fields turned into great craters torn up by bombs and shells,
factories dismantled, herds of cattle fed into the maw of the armies,
and the ruthless Germans even went so far as to wantonly cut down and
destroy whole forests and magnificent shade trees which it took
generations to grow.

How th