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7. Ship of the Month - cont'd. had some particular prospective purchaser in mind, because names honouring U. S. states were chosen for all three of the ships. MALIETOA was laid down as (a) TEXAS, and MATAAFA as (a) PENNSYLVANIA, while it was intended that MAUNALOA would be named TENNESSEE. However, all three vessels were sold be­ fore completion to the Minnesota Steamship Company. There are photographs of MATAAFA operating under the name PENNSYLVANIA, but it is thought that TEXAS became MALIETOA before she commenced service, although TEXAS was her first registered name. TENNESSEE, however, never was registered under that name, and she was enrol­ led at Duluth as MAUNALOA, under U. S. official number 92974. The sale to Minnesota Steamship Company must have occurred fairly early in the building of the steamer, for "The Marine Review" of April 27, 1899, reported: "The cargo steamer building at the works of the Chicago Ship Building Co. for the Minnesota Steamship Co. will be named MAUNALOA. The steel barge building at the same works for the same company will be named MANILA. " The same publication reported in its issue of May 25, 1899, commented that "there is to be no disturbance in the local organization (of the shipyard) on account of the consolidation" (the merger that formed the American Ship Building Company -Ed. ), and further remarked that work on MAUNALOA and MANI­ LA for the Minnesota Steamship Company was progressing, but that there was considerable work yet to be done before they were ready for launching. The issue of August 24th noted: "Another big freight carrier that is certain to figure in cargo records, the steamer MAUNALOA, was launched at the works of the Chicago Ship Building Co. on Saturday last. She is of the 7000 gross tons type and is for the Minnesota Steamship Co., to be managed by the of­ fice of Pickands, Mather & Co., Cleveland. " In fact, MAUNALOA was launched on Saturday, August 12, 1899. (MANILA, the yard's Hull 36, had been launched on June 17th. ) MAUNALOA was to enjoy a very long life, operating for 72 years, and she carried the same name throughout her career. It was the custom of the Minnesota Steamship Company to give all of its boats names beginning with the letter 'M' and ending with the letter 'A', no doubt inspired by the name of the company itself. The tradition developed, however, that the second letter of all of the fleet ships' name also was an 'A'. MAUNALOA was named for the mountain Mauna Loa, almost 14, 000 feet in height, which, along with another mountain of similar height, Mauna Kea, is located on the island of Hawaii. One of the most active volcanoes in the world, the famous Kilauea, is a crater situated on the southeastern slope of Mauna Loa. MAUNALOA was (as recorded by the U. S. government shipping register) 430. 0 feet in length between perpendiculars (452 feet overall), 50. 2 feet in the beam, and 24. 0 feet in depth, her original tonnage being calculated as 4951 Gross and 4004 Net. She had four cargo compartments, with three watertight bulkheads, and 13 hatches were spaced along the spar deck on 24-foot centres. The Inland Lloyd's Register valued her at $265, 000. Built to tow consort barges, MAUNALOA was, like her fleetmates, given very powerful machinery. She was equipped with a quadruple expansion engine which had cylinders of 17 1/8, 27 1/8, 40 and 62 1/8 inches diameter and a stroke of 42 inches. It produced Indicated Horsepower variously reported as 1600, 1800 and 2000 at 78 revolutions per minute. The engine was built for the ship in 1899 by the Chicago Shipbuilding Company. Steam at a working pres­ sure of 250 p. s. i. was generated by two coal-fired watertube boilers manu­ factured in 1899 by the Babcock & Wilcox Company, New York. Equipped with forced draft, they were each 12'6" diameter and 9'2" in length. There were two furnaces, with a total of 134 square feet of grate surface and 7, 000 square feet of heating surface. Although MAUNALOA was just a little longer than MATAAFA, and some 22 feet in overall length shorter than MALIETOA, her engine was the largest of the