We experienced a great deal of trouble with the side brick walls of the furnaces the first two trips, which required the renewal of about 4,000 bricks each voyage. On being notified that we would be required to start making quick turn-arounds on the next voyage, I realized that this could not be done with such an amount of brick work to be repaired. After many conferences while at sea, we finally decided to tear all the brick work out of one boiler and substitute cast iron liners, shaped to fit the drums and punched with holes for ventilation. This idea proved highly successful. All boilers were immediately fitted likewise and all operated successfully. Besides the elimination of the expense for the purchase of bricks and cement, the labor and time of cleaning furnaces was reduced ninety per cent. All that is necessary for cleaning and repairing furnace walls at the present time is one man and a corn broom. The steaming efficiency has been greatly hampered at all times by the flow of water over the fire room floor plates, due to the faulty design of the German ash ejector. After many attempts to remedy this by altering the design, we were finally compelled to replace the hoppers with new hoppers of the See type. There was at all times a great deal of trouble experienced in carrying over water from the boilers to the turbines. The water in the boilers was carried at the lowest level consistent with safety, but in spite of this the trouble still continued. On inspection of the main steam lines and boiler steam drums it was found that they were practically bare of lagging. All these lines and drums were immediately covered with two-inch of magnesia eighty-five per cent pure, and all water trouble was then eliminated. The water level in the boilers was also raised from two to four inches, thus giving a greater factor of safety here. After several trips we noticed that the uptakes were excessively hot and also that at times torching occurred at the stack tops. This being a menace to the safety of the ship in the war zone, it had to be remedied. After examining the uptake, furnaces and path of gases we decided to alter the baffling. This was done by installing flame baffles at the base of the uptake in each boiler. It not only eliminated the torching, but also decreased the amount of soot formation about fifty per cent. This includes all the major items of the fire rooms. A few general items follow: