An even more conspicuous example of resourcefulness on the part of the ordnance salvage forces was the sale of the so-called cartridge cloth. The Ordnance Department was an extensive war consumer of textiles of many kinds. Silk, cotton, wool, felt, and linen are used in numerous forms in the production of ordnance supplies. The quantities acquired during the war may be estimated from the fact that the surpluses left after the armistice brought on sale close to $25,000,000. In the surplus of textile goods was a considerable yardage of what was called cartridge cloth; and it must be said that at the outset none of the excess ordnance supplies seemed to be so hopeless as a salvaging proposition, so certain to account for a large loss of investment, as this stock of cartridge cloth. The cartridge cloth was used during the war to make bags to be filled with the smokeless powder used as the propelling charges for guns of the larger calibers. The cloth was made of silk, for the reason that silk alone among fabrics burns perfectly and leaves no ash to smut the barrel of a gun. Cotton, in contrast, or any other fabric, is likely to leave charred pieces of itself smouldering in the breech of a gun after a shot; and these smouldering pieces may touch off the new powder charge prematurely and kill or maim the men serving the gun. Moreover, silk alone does not cause a flash at the muzzle of the gun when the shot is fired. Such flashes at night betray the gun’s position to the enemy. But though cartridge cloth was made of pure silk, what a silk it was! Naturally, to keep down its cost, it was woven of the cheapest silk materials possible to obtain. It was made of what were practically the by-products of silk-weaving--noils and waste silk. Noils are cut cocoons, immature cocoons, and combings from the outsides of cocoons. The woof of cartridge cloth was made from silk noils and the warp from waste silk. All raw silk is filled with a natural gum, which in commercial processes is boiled out before the silk is woven. Since this gum did not impair the fabric for use in guns (the gum gave perfect combustion and left no ash), it was left in the raw material in order to keep down the cost of the fabric. In order to facilitate the manufacture of cloth from noils, the noils were carded, combed, and spun in oil, oil not being objectionable in the cloth. The result was a greasy, dark colored, rough cloth, looking like oily gunny sacking, a fabric about as unalluring as any that could be imagined. And it cost the Government on the average seventy-two cents a yard. At the time of the armistice the Ordnance Department had on hand about 22,000,000 yards of it. Most of this quantity was set aside as a war reserve. The rest was offered for sale. The best offer for it was twelve and one-half cents a yard. The Government, therefore, faced a considerable loss.