Page:Walker - An Unsinkable Titanic (1912).djvu/87



term "unsinkable," as applied to ships, is used throughout the present work in an accommodated sense. There never was but one unsinkable craft, and for that we must go back to the age of primitive man, who doubtless paddled himself across the rivers and lakes upon a roughly fashioned log of wood.

In the modern sense, an unsinkable ship is one which cannot be sunk by any of the ordinary accidents of the open sea, such as those due to stress of weather, or to collision with icebergs, derelicts, or some other ship.

Can such a ship be built?

Not only is it feasible to construct vessels of this type to-day; but, as far back as the year 1858, there was launched a magnificent ship, the Great Eastern, in which the provisions against foundering were so admirably worked out that probably she would have survived even the terrific collision which proved the undoing of the Titanic. [ 69 ]