TRAGEDY OF THE SEA.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10610, 17 April 1912, Page 4

TRAGEDY OF THE SEA.

The news that the White Star liner Titanic, .the biggest and besd>eqiripped vessel afloat, has gone ito 'the bottom of the <?c-a a« the result of a collision with an iceberg, and has carried with her many valuable lives, will create a profound sensation throughout, the world. (In an article in Harper's Weekly Advertiser by George Eithelibert Walsh, on "The Peril of the Iceberg," the writer says:—"The fear of icebergs ihas been partly removed in recent years by wireless telegraphy, Ibut their presence on the seas i« &til] jneusK'ing enough to cause anxiety to many a r-pptain. . . . (yOT»m-

onent scouting .ships now go out to sea ■to destroy and sink derelicts, but so far they have proved helpless in scattering icebergs. It is true that they can locate theon and report their findings by wireless. Other ships finding icebergs make similar reports, and in this way track is kept of the great floating dangers. 'J tie Government every summer and fall makes out an. iceberg chart. When some ship re- •' ports a certain iceberg in a certain, latitude and longitude, a little red dot is placed on the iceberg chart. It is drifting in a southerly direction, and allowances are made for so many miles of advance every twenty-four hours. So the red dot is moving forward slowly. But adverse winds, seas and currents may change the course of the .berg, and this sort of reckoning may prove all wrong. Then another ' ship reports the same on another iceiberg in a different pmce. More red dots appear on the chart, and as the season advances the danger points, increase. These charts are issued as' warnings to mariners. Ships sailing in certain northern latitudes must study the location of the icebergs, and for the sa"ke of safety the captains provide themselves with-duplicates of the charts. Bait even with all of the.se efforts to plot out the floating bergs, the danger of colliding with one is airway s' present. -An adverse wind * may . Jhave driven one far'.put of its or'a big one has broken in two, aud the halve**. have floated wide apart. The icebergs a.re dangerous obstructions to navigation, cat, clear, djark nights, as well as in times of fog. They carry no lights, and they cannot be detected in the dark until quite close upon a ship. • • • The

ocean liner has little more chance of escaping collision with an iceberg than the smaller sailing craft. The rotten ice towering hundreds of feet laibove the water level is ready to fall in. great masses the moment a slight shock is given to its base and Bides. Many unaccounted disappearances, of ships and steamers are attributed to tragic collisions with icebergs, ships and all on board going to the 'bottom

without so much as a remnant left to tell the tale."