Page:Walker - An Unsinkable Titanic (1912).djvu/123

AN UNSINKABLE TITANIC skin of her forward boiler-rooms was ruptured by the iceberg, it would have served to prevent the inflow of water to these two large compartments. Mr. Ismay, the President of the International Mercantile Marine Company, in his testimony at the Senate Investigation, stated that among the improvements, which would be made in the Gigantic, now under construction for the company, would be the addition of an inner skin. Doubtless he had in mind the construction above suggested.

The 10-inch channel frames extended from the double bottom to the bridge deck, and some of these bars were 66 feet in length and weighed nearly 1 ton apiece. The frames were tied together along the full length of each deck by the deck beams of channel section, which, throughout the middle portion of the ship, were 10 inches deep and weighed as high as 1¼ tons apiece. The transverse stiffness of the framing was assured by stout bracket knees, riveted to the frames and deck beams at each point of connection, and by the 15 watertight bulkheads, which were riveted strongly to the bottom and sides of the ship, and also by 11 non-watertight bulkheads, which formed the inner walls of the [ 101 ]