8-Inch Pouring Building

8-Inch Pouring Building. Bethlehem Loading Country History Trail. , Small quantities of explosives, in total just a day's worth, were delivered continuously to the pouring/filling buildings. Ammonium nitrate, a white crystalline solid, was crushed to a fine powder, and then delivered to the kettle rooms where it was mixed with molten TNT. The kettle rooms were separated from the other portions of the building by heavy firewalls of brick, some of which still stand today. The mixture, known as amatol, was then sent to extruding machines, which workers operated to fill each shell., Heavy concrete walls separated the extruding machines from each other, and outward swinging doors were placed directly opposite the workers' stations in case of explosion. Ventilating systems kept the air free from noxious fumes and gases. Every so often, a specially made split shell was loaded and then taken apart and examined so any loading defects could be quickly corrected before large quantities were produced., [Captions:] , Taken from the top of the administration building, this 1918 photograph shows the 8-inch plant in the distance., A large mounted gun is the focus of this world war one poster seeking recruits for the US Navy. (Library of Congress, POS-world war one-US, no. 329)