Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 88.djvu/230

 Searching for the Best Respirator and Mask

���Styles in poison gas masks change more rapidly than Parisian styles in bon- nets. Officers and men are constantly searching for a more efficient mask which will enable the sol- diers to resist the thickest clouds of asphyxiating gas. The favorite method of testing the efficiency of a new mask is to call for volunteers, who descend into a tunnel which is filled with the deadly • fumes. Many volunteer to per- form this hazardous ex- periment, though the out- come is xincertain at best. They know that it may mean the saving of many lives, even if it is at the actual sacrifice of their own. More and more the war resolves itself, in its minor phases, into battles of science, and science de- mands a laboratory. Here is the laboratory of the respirators

��If these men come out of the gas-filled tuTinel unaf- fected, the mask will perhaps be adopted. At least, it will be given a further trial. We have not heard how many of these devices have been tested in this manner and found faulty, but it is certain that many sol- diers would rather be in the trenches than in a gas-filled tunnel with an untried respirator

��202

�� �