Worcester, Mass., conversion of the Eclectic

College into a hospital................................$36,800

Manchester, N. H........................................30,000

Hicks Hospital, Baltimore...............................75,000

Nashville...............................................25,000

Hilton Head hospital, extended..........................30,000

At the commencement of the fiscal year the capacity of the hospitals of the Army was 120,521 beds. The capacity of the principal hospitals erected during the fiscal years is 7,300 beds.

By the pitching of hospital tents adjacent to the wooden hospitals, great additions to their capacity have been made.

Hospital buildings are erected and hospitals tents are furnished by the Quartermaster's Department. The hospitals, after being constructed, are turned over to the Medical Department, to be administered under direction of the Surgeon-General. Repairs and extensions are made upon his requisition, approved by the War Department, as they become necessary.

When the hospitals are vacated they are returned to this department, to be sold or otherwise disposed of.

The hospitals throughout the country (and during the war they have been located in almost every State) have been built by the Quartermaster's Department upon plans generally prepared or suggested by the Surgeon-General.

They are temporary structured built of wood with a view to economy, but from their magnitude some of them have been costly.

The Mower General Hospital at Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, with a capacity for nearly 4,000 patients; the hospital at Davids Island and that at Willets Point, N. Y.; the Jarvis and the Patterson park Hospitals, at Baltimore; the general hospital at Jeffersonville, Ind.; the several hospitals in the District of Columbia and adjacent thereto, the hospitals at Fortress Monroe and at City Point, on the James River, and the hospitals at Nashville and at Chattanooga, Tenn., are among the largest and most expensive which have been constructed by this department.

The material (wood) used in these hospitals is cheaper than any other cheaper even than tents; but to provide for the cooking, warming, ventilating, and purification of such numbers of sick men requires at all these great general hospitals very expensive and costly arrangements for cooking, for laundries, and for supplying water in great abundance. Many of them are heated by steam; some are supplied with water from the pipes of city water- works at others special provisions have been made for an independent water supply. Most of them have steam machinery for washing and for pumping. At one of these hospitals the daily consumption of water has exceeded 100,000 gallons.

The principal barracks erected during the year have been barracks for draft rendezvous.

Spring Mills, near Philadelphia........................$84,000

Slocum, N. Y............................................25,000

Johnson's Island, for guard of

prisoners of war, Sanducky, Ohio.......................15,000

A depot for prisoners of war was also constructed on Hart's Island, N. Y.

Necessary repairs have been made from time upon these and upon the numerous other barracks scattered throughout the country.

As the reduction of the Army and cessation of enlistments have vacated the various barracks, they have been inspected and reported to the War Department, most of them with recommendation for sale.