TITANIC SINKING.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1415, 16 April 1912, Page 7

TITANIC SINKING.

WORLD'S LARGEST LINER. COLLIDES WITH ICEBERQ ON MAIDEN TRIP. THREE THOUSAND ON BOARD. VESSEL GOING DOWN BY THE HEAD By Telegraph-Prefß Association-Copyright (Rec. April IG, 0.40 a.m.) London, April 15. The monster White Star liner Titanic, 45,000 tons gross, bus collided with an iceberg in the Atlantic, and is sinking by the head off Cape Race, on the Newfoundland coast. Tho Titanic which, with her sistership tho Olympic, is the largest vessel in the world, left Southampton on Wednesday on her first voyage to New York, and has nearly 3000 passengers on board, Tho women are being taken off. (Rec, April IC, 0.40 a.m.) New York, April 15. A wireless message has been received from the White Star liner Titanic stating that she has collided with an iceberg, and is in need of assistance. Tho liner Virginian is hastening to her aid. A MONSTER LINER. THE TITANIC DESCRIBED. Tho Titanic, which was launched at Belfast at the end of last May, and her sister ship, tho Olympic, are the largest vessels afloat, each being 45,000 tons register. They are 8821 ft. long and 92} it. broad, anil tho horse-power of their engines will range from 48,000 to 50,000. The passenger accoinmodition on both of ;hese vessels is of unparalleled luxury. Full advantage, it is said, has been taken by the designers of ths enormous size of the vessels to excel anything hitherto attempted, both in tho public ooms and ■private cabins. In the first-class section of the ships alono over 32,500 square feet is given over to public apartments, not including the space- given up to entrances, stairways, etc. There are no fewer than eight decks to bo given over for passengers' use. Many of the rooms on these steamers exceed the average hotel or apartment room, being lift, by lift. A fully-equipped Turkish bath is situated on deck "!'," consisting of the usual steam, hot, temperate, shampooing, and cooling rooms. Electric baths and a swimming bath are provided. There are three passenger elevntors. The cost of tho Olympic has been set down at .£1,500,000, and the Titanic would probably run into about the same figure. The full complement of the Titanic is given as 334.6 persons, made up of (30 first-class passengers, 100 of whom are carried in single-berth cabins, 560 secondclass, some also in single-berth cabins, and 1200 third-class. The officers ana crew number 63, the engine-room complement 322, while the remaining 471 are accounted for by tho stewards and victualling department. . . It is interesting, wrote tho Westminster Gazette" last year, to see how such a ship as the Titanic has grown under the hands of tho shipwright, and how her enormous gross tonnage—4s,ooo-and her ultimate displacement of 60,000 tons are accounted for. There is a great doublebottom, to begin with, riveted by nydraiilic power; and rising up from this to a height of Gfift. are heavy frames and bars, bridged by transverse warns, and strengthened by longitudinal girders that extend the whole length of tho ship. Steel columns 'of enormous girth support these girders; and in this way the "stiffness" of the # ves?e in a heavy sea is secure-1. On this skeleton a skin of plates is stretched; and most of tho plates are 30ft. in length and Gft.in width. She has stem-castings that weigh mo tons—more than many a useful steam-boat-built into ono solid fitnicjiiro with more than a ton of rivets. The bolts that fasten together the sections of tho steel rudder are much thicker than a man s wrist: and the nuHer itself has a lenstli considerably more than that, of a cricket pitch, and a weight just a little greater than that of the old 101-ton gun. . . . And =o wonderfully ar<j all these enormous weights and great masses of metal brought into control that the pressing of a button oil the captain's bridge, for example will close all the heavy water-tight doors throughout tho ship, and the movement of a ever by a man down below, who may seen trouble threatening, or the raising, by water, of an automatic float, enables any door to close itself.