This system had nothing to do with the settlement of claims arising out of the War Department’s operations in real estate during the war. There were thousands of claims for damage done to property incidental to the training of the Army. To settle such claims the Secretary of War utilized the existing War Department Board of Appraisers, which had been created to establish the values of commandeered property. The commanders of military posts investigated the validity of real estate claims and recommended awards. These, after approval by the Board of Appraisers and the Secretary of War, were paid by the auditor of the War Department. Numerous real estate claims arose under informal and invalid agreements, and the condition of such claimants was usually particularly helpless. When the War Department started to build its great trinitrotoluol plant at Racine, Wisconsin, a large number of persons, home owners and renters, moved off the site without the formality of written contracts. Many of these individuals sold their farm animals and household goods. The armistice cut short the construction of the plant, and then the property owners discovered that they were without legal standing before the Government. The Dent Law enabled the Department to settle these and other real estate claims arising under informal contracts, and the Board of Appraisers made the settlements. The Canadian contracts, both formal and informal, were adjusted by the Imperial Munitions Board, acting in conjunction with two American officers called assessors, one of whom was a special member of the War Department Claims Board. Mr. D. C. Jackling, the director of United States Government Explosives Plants, adjusted all the outstanding contracts and orders in connection with the construction of the Nitro (West Virginia) Powder Plant. More than 3,200 firms and individuals had received orders for materials for the plant, and a fire at the plant immediately after the armistice destroyed the records of all open orders. The terms of these orders were reëstablished by correspondence with the contractors. A special settlement board within the Ordnance Department adjusted the terminated contracts for the construction of nitrogen fixation plants authorized as a war measure. The Spruce Production Corporation of the Air Service terminated and settled its own contracts with the spruce lumber interests in the Northwest.