Page:Walker - An Unsinkable Titanic (1912).djvu/50

AN UNSINKABLE TITANIC 1,000,000 foot-tons would cause her to grind along past the broken bow, surely more than the 100 feet or so which would suffice to involve three compartments. If three compartments amidships were opened to the sea, it would mean the admission of some 12,000 to 15,000 tons of water.

Even more insidious is the menace of the abandoned and water-logged ship—the justly dreaded derelict—which, floating low in the water, and without a light to reveal its position, may lie directly in the path of the high-speed ocean liner. So slightly does the derelict project above the surface, that it is almost impossible of detection by night from the lofty position of the lookout on a modern steamship.

Another risk of the sea, which, because of long immunity from disaster, is in danger of being overlooked or underrated, is that of fire. The structural portions of a ship and its engine and boiler-plant, being of metal, are proof against fire; but the stateroom partitions, the wooden floors and ceilings, the wainscoting, and the hundreds of tons of material used in decoration and general embellishment, to say nothing of the highly inflammable paint-work and [ 28 ]