Miles of docks, hundreds of acres of covered storage, hundreds of power plants and complete water systems, thousands of miles of roads, railroads, water mains, and sewer lines--the list grows monotonous simply because of the size of its items, which are not to be visualized by stating them in terms of acres and miles. The activity was at its height at the signing of the armistice, when it became incumbent upon the Construction Division to terminate the work. Four hundred and fifty army construction projects were under way on the day of the armistice. One hundred and thirty-one stood completed. The incomplete projects included some of the largest and costliest ones. But the salvage value of buildings is small unless they can be sold to purchasers able to make use of them as and where they stand. Few war buildings were adapted to civilian use. They were highly specialized for a purely war use, and they were not often located where they could be of economic benefit to the country. A large part of their cost represented the evanescent element of labor, a value entirely destroyed when buildings are wrecked for the sake of salvaging their materials. The war plant, even incomplete, represented an immense investment, but one which would be almost altogether lost if the plant were to be knocked down for salvage. Therefore it was of advantage to the Government to carry on a surprisingly large amount of war construction after the armistice for the sake of getting the use-value from its investment by occupying these installations with the permanent Army. But there were other reasons for continuing work. Among the largest and costliest of the construction projects were those which provided the ocean terminal bases at Boston, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Norfolk, Charleston, and New Orleans. These installations were all of durable, fireproof construction; and, with their piers, their great warehouses equipped with labor-saving machinery, trackage, and the like, they were the last word of modern constructional science in developments of this sort. In appropriating the money for these port works, Congress had stipulated that after the war they should be used in the development of American foreign trade. Consequently the Construction Division went ahead after the armistice and finished up these buildings.