Los Angeles herald., 1907-02-02

With every mechanical, say rather
auto-mechanical device In perfect work
ing order; with plates and beams and
frames and rivcts contributing equally
to that element which naval architects
call structural strength, there is not
the slightest reason why the most timid
person should take passage aboard a
modern Transatlantic liner with any
deeper misgivings than he would feel
in boarding limited train for Chicago
or n crowded local for the suburbs
There Is really not so much reason for
apprehension, in defense of which asser-
ton It is but necessary to suggest a
comparison of the mortality tables COW
ering railroad disasters in the United
states for the year 1906 with the loss
of life through shipwreck. Allowing for
the vast numerical preponderance of
travel OF railroad over travel by sea,
and taking averages on a purely COM
paratlve basis, the ocean voyager has
much the better of 1t.
The strides in the science OF ship
building in the past twenty years not
alone as regards size. speed and luxury,
but, above all, safety. repay considera-
tlon. The modern liner is practically
unsinkable. and the question of future
disasters, as I'm the case of the ill-fatcd
Prin2essin Victoria Luisc. resolves it
self into a question of the frailty OF
humankind. The might of the worst
sea ever experienced shipbulders have
set at naught; collision bulkhcads have
done away with the fear of the lurking
dereliCt the modern automatic sealing
of compartments offsets the puncturing
of a hull through a collision and the
danger of destruction by fire.
Il. IL.
is lost in the future will be lost through
the mistake of her navigator. No ship
builder i'm all the ages to come, 1t
seems, will ever build a craft that will
hold together in pounding on rocks or
stormy shoals, but even this danger is
being lessened through the benefcenCe
of wireless telography and the "sunken
bell' system.
Until the early eighties, passenger
steamships below decks were to be re-
gprded simply as huge boxes, present
| ing, from stem to stern, one unbroken
space. A hole in the hull below the
water line involved, of necessity, the
filing of that hull with water and con-
seqLent sinking. Such a disaster to the
Collins Line steamship Arctic the
transatlantic queen of the fifties,
marked the beginning of the downfall
of company of which Americans We're
justly proud. Cropping her way through
the fog on the Grand Banks, the Arctic
was rammed by the French steamship
Nesta. So calmly assured of the
strength of his great steamship as to
render the thought of the loss of his
vessel a remote consideration, brave
Capt. Luce ordered Gourley, his first
officer, oversize in a small boat TO
ascertain the extent of the damage to
the Vesta and to offer all assistance
needed. Gourley never got back to the
Arctic, which filled and sank like lead.
First Water-Tight Compartments
Thus it went from 1854 on through the
sixties and seventies, until when the
plans for the new Guion liner Arizona
were drawn the owners of the line,
Williams & Guion, gave ear to the as
sertions of a marine engineer and con-
tracted for the installation in their new
boat of a system of Water-tight COM
partmentS. This system may best be
described by suggesting the various
rooms of a house. each room Of which
is hermetically sealed by the closing of
the door which leads to the adjoin-
ing room. Naturally, the structural
strength of these rooms, compartments,
in the Arizona was applied in accord
ance with facts obtained from tests of
/
seven or eight of these compartments
in the new Guion liner, beginning with
a collision bulkhead some thirty feet
abaft the bow, and continuing through
the various holds to the stern.
The bulkhead doors were closed by
hand; certain members of the crew
were assigned to each door, their duty
being to assemble there upon signal and
seal the compartment without loss of
time. This system, by the way, was
not long in proving its worth. For one
cold morning on the banks the Ari-
zona crashed bow on into an immense
iceberg, caving in her plates as though
they were cardboard The collision
bulkhead saved her. She made port a
trihe down by the head, a forehold full
of water, but every other part of the
hull dry as a bone.
No new greyhound was built there
after without these water-tight COM
partments. The drawback to this sys-
TEN was the fact that it was necessary
that the doors be closed by the hand