Notes

Abstract

THE appalling disaster to the Titanic on Monday morning, by which more than 1300 of the passengers and crew have lost their lives, has brought several scientific subjects into prominence. Such subjects are: the dynamic effects of a mass of 50,000 tons moving at a speed of about 15 knots, the conditions of stability of a vessel built upon the watertight bulkhead system when an extensive injury has been isolated by closing the watertight doors, the beneficent use of wireless telegraphy in summoning assistance to a vessel in distress, and the means of detecting the presence of icebergs at a distance. The Titanic, which was making her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York, was the largest vessel in the world, and the most luxuriously equipped. She was installed with Marconi wireless telegraphy instruments having a sphere of influence with a radius of about 500 miles by day and treble this distance by night. The first news was the appeal for help which went throbbing through the aether and was detected by the wireless telegraphy operators on several vessels. The message was: “Have struck an iceberg 41.46 north, 50.14 west. Are badly damaged. Rush aid.” This was at 10.25 p.m. on Sunday, New York time (3.25 a.m. Monday, Greenwich time). Several vessels hastened to the place of the disaster, but the nearest ship appears to have been 170 miles distant from the Titanic when the message of distress was received, and none of them was able to reach her before she foundered at 2.20 a.m. (New York time) on Monday morning-four hours after the collision with the iceberg. The Car-pathia reached the Titanic's position at daybreak, and found boats and wreckage only. In the boats were 868 survivors of the crew and passengers—mostly women and children—the remainder of the human freight of 2200 souls having found a grave with the vessel in the Atlantic.