In general, plants and machinery used in making powder could be used also to some extent to make the commodities of peaceful commerce, and therefore the Ordnance Department had little difficulty in disposing of these surplus facilities at good prices. The powder-making facilities created during the war by the DuPont Powder Company near Wilmington, for instance, almost at once after the armistice turned to the manufacture of dyestuffs. Another war powder plant, with practically the same machinery, is to-day producing artificial silk, a cellulose commodity similar in chemical composition to smokeless powder. A third is making celluloid and artificial ivory; a fourth, paper. [Illustration: _Photo by Howard E. Coffin_ AMERICAN FIELD GUNS ON THE RHINE] [Illustration: _Photo by Howard E. Coffin_ AMERICAN GUN ON EHRENBREITSTEIN, COBLENZ] Since trinitrotoluol (T. N. T.) was the most widely used of all war explosives, the Ordnance Department was forced to go into the production of the basic toluol itself as well as into the manufacture of its nitrated compound. One war source of toluol was coal gas, and to secure the chemical from this source the Ordnance Department set up stripping plants in the gas works of thirteen American cities. Nine of the gas companies bought this equipment after the armistice. The other four plants were sold on the market, the machinery eventually finding its way into the new industry which is taking gasoline from natural gas. The Government sold out completely its two T. N. T. plants, which were located respectively at Racine, Wisconsin, and Giant, California. [Illustration: _Photo by Signal Corps_ DESTROYING CAPTURED GERMAN AMMUNITION] [Illustration: _Photo by Signal Corps_ A CAPTURED AMMUNITION DUMP] One of the most notable enterprises in all the liquidation of war industry was that of closing up the war project for the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen and the placing of that undertaking upon a permanent peace footing. In order to conduct this enterprise intelligently the Secretary of War selected certain scientists and men of business experience to study every phase of the subject of the military and commercial fixation of nitrogen and to recommend to the War Department what disposition to make of the war fixation plants. This board was known as the Fixed Nitrogen Administration.