eers, on the other hand, set forth their opinion that all damaged
cylinders could be reclaimed and made as good as new.

As a result of this difference of opinion, nothing was done until the
larger German craft were turned over to the Navy Department to be fitted
as transports, in July of 1917. It was then decided to use welding and
patching on the vessels.

In no cases were the repairs to the propulsive machinery delayed beyond
the time necessary to equip these ships as transports. Electric and
acetylene welding is not a complicated art in the hands of skilled men;
for patching a hole, or filling the cavity of a great crack in a
cylinder, say by electric welding, may be compared to a similar
operation in dental surgery.

Returning to the _Leviathan's_ faulty German construction, be it said
that the opinion of the navy engineers who overhauled her, was that
inferior engineering had been practised in her construction. There are
on this craft four turbine engines ahead, and four astern, on four
shafts. All the head engines were in good shape, but all the astern
engines were damaged. But the main part of the damage had resulted more
to faulty operation of the engines than to malicious damage. Cracks were
found in the casing of the starboard high-pressure backing turbine,
cracks of size so great as to make it certain that this engine had not
been used in the last run of that vessel on transatlantic service in
1914. There was discovered on the _Vaterland_, or _Leviathan_,
documentary evidence to prove this, and it also appeared from this paper
that on her last trip to this country the vessel had not averaged twenty
knots. It may be that the German ship-builders had hurried too swiftly
in their strenuous efforts to produce a bigger, if not a better,
steamship than the British could turn out.

Forty-six of the _Vaterland's_ boilers showed evidence of poor handling.
They were not fitted with the proper sort of internal feed-pipes. All
these defects, defects original with the steamship, were repaired by the
Americans. In addition, evidences of minor attempts to disable the
_Vaterland_ were found, such, for instance, as holes bored in sections
of suction-pipes, the holes having been puttied and thus concealed.
Things of the sort afforded ample reason for a thorough overhaul of the
vast mass of machinery aboard the steamship. But eventually she was
ready for her test and her performance on a trial trip to southern
waters showe