Page:Walker - An Unsinkable Titanic (1912).djvu/178

AN UNSINKABLE TITANIC after having been struck by three or four torpedoes.

Now, it is inexpedient to build merchant ships with such an elaborate system of watertight compartments as that described in this chapter. Considerations of cost and convenience of operation render this impossible; but it is entirely possible to incorporate in the large passenger steamers a sufficient degree of protection of this character to render them proof against sinking by the accidents of collision, whether with another ship, a derelict, or even with the dreaded iceberg. The manner in which the problem has been worked out in several of the most noted passenger steamers of the present day is reserved for discussion in the following chapter. [ 158 ]