contract. These bonds are known as "fulfillment bonds"
and are issued by responsible surety companies, usually to the amount
of 5 per cent. of the total contract price, on behalf of the vendors,
guaranteeing their deliveries and fulfillment of the contract.

In the earlier stages of this war supply business the question of his
ability to secure raw materials with which to manufacture arms and
ammunition or picric acid--this latter being used to manufacture
higher explosives--was of no great concern to the manufacturer taking
an order; but as orders came pouring in from abroad for ever larger
amounts of supplies it was clearly evident that the demand for raw
materials would shortly equal, if not exceed, the supply thereof. This
condition was soon brought about, and today is one to be most
seriously reckoned with by the manufacturer before accepting a
contract.

Some of the materials needed with which to manufacture the supplies
are mild carbon steel for the barrels, bayonets, bolt, and locks;
well-seasoned ash or maple, straight-grained, for the stocks; brass,
iron, powder, antimony, benzol or phenol, sulphuric acid, nitric acid,
and caustic soda, &c. Of these various materials the most difficult to
secure are those used in the manufacture of picric acid.

Today it is almost impossible to secure phenol, certainly in any
considerable quantities, and it is almost as difficult to secure
sulphuric acid and nitric acid. Germany has been the source of supply
in the past for picric acid. Before the war it sold around 35 cents to
40 cents per pound, dry basis; recently it has sold at over $2 per
pound for spot, that is immediate delivery, and is quoted at from
$1.25 to $1.60 per pound for early future deliveries.

Antimony is becoming so scarce, never having been produced in any
great quantity in this country, that in the new contracts being
submitted for shrapnel shell it is stipulated that some other
hardening ingredients may be substituted in the bullets, either
totally or partly replacing the antimony.

Brass is essential to the manufacture of cartridges. The term "brass"
is commonly understood to mean an alloy of copper and zinc.

Up to a short time ago electrolytic copper was selling at 20-1/2 cents
a pound, lead at 7 cents a pound, commercial zinc at 29-1/2 cents a
pound. Zinc ore, from which spelter is obtained, reached the price of
$112 a ton. American spelter was nearly $500 a ton, compared with $110
a ton befo