THE TOLL OF THE SEA

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 246, 17 April 1912, Page 5

THE TOLL OF THE SEA

An Ocean Tragedy

The Loss of the Titanic Fateful Collision with an Iceberg Fearful Loss of Life By Cable—Press Association—Copyright Received 16, 5 p.m. LONDON, April 16. The Titanic sank. Six hundred and seventy-five of her complement were saved. It is feared that many have perished. The Titanic struck on Sunday evening. There were 1380 passengers, including 300 first-class, and a crew of 650. The Virginian received the Titanic's appeals when 170 miles distant. The Olympic and Baltic have also gone to the rescue, but it is doubtful whether they arrived in time. The last signals were blurred, and ended abruptly. The women were disembarked in lifeboats. The weather was calm. The passengers included Mr. "W. T. Stead, Mr. James Ismay, of Ismay, Imrie and Co. and the White Star Line, Colonel J. Astor, and several New York bankers. Received 15, 9.40 p.m. LONDON, April 15. The White Star officials believe that 1500 of the Titanic's passengers and crew have been drowned. So far the details of the disaster are meagre and contradictory in character. It is believed that all the first-class passengers have been saved. This estimate is based by a count of those on board the Carpathia, the Cunard liner to which the Virginian transferred the people rescued by her. It is not known-yet whether the Parisian saved any of the passengers or crew. The vessel cost £1,350,000, and her hull and cargo are insured for £2,350,000. Reinsurances were effected at 50gns. per cent. )FFICIAL STATEMENT. Received 16, 12.5 a.m. NEW YORK, April 15. . Mr. Franklin, vics-president of the White Star Steamship Company, admits that there has been heavy loss of life by the wreck of the Titanic. THE LOST LINER. NOTHING BUT WRECKAGE. The Olympic, which is a sister ship to the Titanic, and is a 22£ knot boat, steamed with all speed to the scene of the disaster. She found nothing but wreckage left of the Titanic. THE SCENE ON SHORE. ALMOST A PANIC. The officers of the White Star Company were besieged by friends ef the wealthy Americans who were on board the Titanic. The absence of definite news created an excitement almost amounting to a panic in New York. THE SCENE OF THE DISASTER. Experienced Atlantic voyagers state that they have never before known of ice being met so far south as the scene of the disaster, in such great bulk as now. The ice recently met with has been mostly topless bergs, merely awash in the sea, and difficult to discern. Various liners have recently encountered an icefield 100 miles long by 35 miles broad, near Newfoundland Grand Banks, and had perilous voyages. The liner Niagara twice had holes made in her, and other vessels also sustained damage.

A -MONSTER LINER,

THE TITANIC DESCRIBED. The Titanic, which was launched at Belfast at the end of last May, and her sister ship, the Olympic, are the largest vessels afloat, each being 45,000 tons register. They are 882% feet long and 92% feet broad, and the horse-power of their engines will from 48,000 to 50,000. The passenger accommodation on both of these vessels is of unparalleled luxury. Full advantage, it is said, has ,been taken by the designers of the enormous size of the vessel to excel anything hitherto attempted, both in the public rooms and private cabins. In the firet-class section of the ships alone over 32,600 square feet is given over to public _apartments, not including the space given up to entrances, stairways, eltc. There are no fewer tlian eight decks to be given over for passengers' use. Many of the rooms on these steamers exceed the averse hotel or apartment room, (being lift by lift. A fullyequipped Turkish bath "is situated on deck "F," consisting of the usual steam, hot, temperate, shampooing and cooling room 3. Electric baths and a swimming bath are provided. There are three pas°senger elevators. The cost of the Olympic has been set down at £1,500,000. and the Titanic would probably run into about tho same figure. The full complement of the Titanic is given as 3340 persons, made up of 730 firstnclass passengers, 100 of whom are earned .in single-berth cabins, 500 secondclass, some also in single-berth cal»ins and 1200 third-class. The officers and

crew number 63, the engine-room complement 322, While the remaining 471 arc accounted for by the stewards and victualing department. It is interesting, wrote the Westminster Gazette last year, to see how such a ship as the Titanic has grown under the hands of the shipwright, and how her ultimate displacement of 66,000 tons is accounted for. There ia a great double-bottom, to begin with, riveted by hydraulic power; and rising up from this to a height of 66ft. are heavy frames and bars, bridged by transverse beams, and strengthened by longitudinal girders that extend the whole length of the ship. Steel columns of enormous girth support these girders; and in this way the "stiffness" of the vessel in a heavy sea is secured. On this skeleton a skin of plates is stretched; and most of the plates- are 10ft. in length and 6ft. in width. She has istem-castings that weigh 190 tons—more than many a useful steamboat—Sbuilt into one solid structure with more than a ton of rivets. The bolts that fasten together the sections of the steel rudder are much thicker than a man's wrist: and the rudder itself has a length considerably more than that of a cricket pitch, and a weight just a little greater than that of the old 101ton gun. . . . And so wonderfully are all these enormous weights and great masses of metal brought into control that the pressing jf a button on the captain's bridge, for example, will close all the heavy water-tight doors throughout the ship, amd the movement of a lever by a man down below, who may see trouble threatening, or the raising, by water, of an automatic float, enables • any door to dose itself.