Seven hundred thousand of these were engaged on munition work proper. They did from 60 to 70 per cent of all the machine work on shells, fuses, and trench warfare supplies, and 1450 of them were trained mechanics to the Royal Flying Corps. They were employed upon practically every operation in factory, in foundry, in laboratory, and chemical works, of which they were physically capable; in making of gauges, forging billets, making fuses, cartridges, bullets--"look what they can do," said a foreman, "ladies from homes where they sat about and were waited upon." They also made optical glass; drilled and tapped in the shipyards; renewed electric wires and fittings, wound armatures; lacquered guards for lamps and radiator fronts; repaired junction and section boxes, fire control instruments, a
