The original contract for rifle grenades had been let to the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Co. of Pittsburgh. This called for the production of all parts by the Westinghouse Co. and the assembling of them in the Westinghouse plant to the number of 5,000,000 grenades. But there was such a diversity of material employed in the manufacture of rifle grenades that succeeding contracts were let for parts and for assembling separately. After the rifle grenade had been redesigned new contracts were let for a total of 30,115,409 of them. In August, a few weeks later, the daily production of these grenades in the various plants had reached a total of 130,000 and by the end of October the daily production was 250,000. The goal toward which this production was aiming was the expected spring offensive of the American Expeditionary Forces in 1919. We should have met this event adequately because, while only 685,200 American rifle grenades had actually been shipped overseas when the fighting ceased, we had 20,000,000 of them ready for loading at that time and the production was already heavy and constantly increasing. Special consideration is due the following-named firms for their efforts in developing the production of rifle grenades: Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Co., Pittsburgh, Pa. Briggs & Stratton Co., Milwaukee, Wis. Holcomb & Hoke, Indianapolis, Ind. Stewart-Warner Speedometer Corporation, Chicago, Ill. Cutler-Hammer Manufacturing Co., Milwaukee, Wis. American Radiator Co., Buffalo, N. Y. Link-Belt Co., Indianapolis, Ind. Doehler Die Castings Co., Brooklyn, N. Y. TOXIC GAS EQUIPMENT. America entered the war nearly two years after the Germans had made their first gas attack. In those intervening months gas warfare had grown to be a science in itself, requiring special organizations with each army to handle it. The employment of toxic gas had developed along several lines. The original attack by the Germans upon the mask-less Canadians at Ypres had been in the form of a gas cloud from projectors, these latter being pressure tanks with nozzle outlets. For some time the Germans continued the use of gas solely by this method. Retaliation on the part of the allies quickly followed. However, the employment of gas cloud attacks involved great labor of preparation and was absolutely dependent upon certain combinations of weather conditions. In consequence, the launching of a gas attack in this form could not be timed with regard to other tactical operations. Therefore the allies were put to the necessity of developing other means of throwing toxic gases, and this they did by inclosing the gas in shell shot from the big guns of the artillery, in grenades thrown by hand from the trenches, and--most effectively of all--by the agency of an ingenious invention of the British known as the Livens projector.