THE NEW EXPLOSIVE

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2298, 4 November 1914, Page 6

THE NEW EXPLOSIVE

A SCENE OF DEATH .IN THE , GEIIiRN : TRENCHES. There have, been rumours and reports of the terrible explosive which M. Turpon, the inventor cf melinite, had placed at the service-of-France. It had been tried : once near Chalons, 60 it was said, on a flock: of sheep.',. -A shell-charged with'the new oxplosivo burst above them. ' The smoke cleared jvway.. Of the four hundred sheep' four hundred wore dead. It has been used now, Ilearn, in the bitter earnest of war,' writes the Paris correspondent 1 of the "Manchester Guardian, under 'late September 11. Ho adds:' A friend of mine,' a member of the American branch of the Red Cross, returned to Paris this afternoon from a visit to the trenches, around _ Meaux, whither he had gone with,- his ambulance to bring in the wounded. The strange horror _of what he had seen there was still in his eyes.

"I saw," lie said, , '.'the German trenches as the French guns left them. They were filled; with dead,' but with dead in such: posture as the world 'has never seen since the Destroying Angel passed above the' Philistine canjp in that avenging night of Scripture. It was as though some blight; from Heaven had fallen'upon them; There they stood in line, rifles to shoulder, r silent company of ghosts in.-the 'grey light'of dawn. : I approached them.' "There was no horror in their faces, no agony of surprise even. _ Only over them was a film of fine greyish ponder. You' would havo said' that they 'had travelled a long and dusty road. I have seen,men-before who have died of asphyxiation, but here was. no sign of fchs agonising struggle for breath. It was as if a deep and sudden sleep had overtaken them—only their, eyes-were open. They might have been there for al'i eternity thus; their rifles at rest. I. felt that if I touched thein they would crumble into dust. Never have I seen anything' more terrible than .these erect, silent figure in the chill dawn." That was my friend's story. I give it'without'comment.