The Sinking Of The Titanic (ePub)

This is the extended annotated edition of this book, including a detailed introduction regarding the history of steamships and steamship lines until the greatest maritime disaster occured.

The human imagination is unequal to the reconstruction of the appalling scene of the disaster in the North Atlantic. No picture of the pen or of the painter's brush can adequately represent the magnitude of the calamity that has made the whole world kin. How trivial in such an hour seem the ordinary affairs of civilized mankind--the minor ramifications of politics, the frenetic rivalry of candidates, the haggle of stock speculators. We are suddenly, by an awful visitation, made to see our human transactions in their true perspective, as small as they really are. Man's pride is profoundly humbled: he must confess that the victory this time has gone to the blind, inexorable forces of nature, except in so far as the manifestation of the heroic virtues is concerned.

The ship that went to her final resting place two miles below the placid, unconfessing level of the sea represented all that science and art knew how to contribute to the expedition of traffic, to the comfort and enjoyment of voyagers. She had 15 watertight steel compartments supposed to render her unsinkable. She was possessed of submarine signals with micro-phones, to tell the bridge by means of wires when shore or ship or any other object was at hand.There was a collision bulkhead to safeguard the ship against the invasion of water amidships should the bow be torn away. In a word, the boat was as safe and sound as the shipbuilder could make it. It was the pride of the owners and the commander that what has happened could not possibly occur.

And yet the Titanic went down, and carried to their doom hundreds of passengers and men who intimately knew the sea and had faced every peril that the navigator meets.

Table of Contents:

Preface
Introduction
Chapter I - From A Day Of Delight To Death
Chapter II - Heart-Rending Scenes On Carpathia
Chapter III - Band Played To The Last
Chapter IV - Neglect Caused Disaster
Chapter V - Believed Ship Unsinkable
Chapter VI - How Survivors Escaped
Chapter VII - Woman's Thrilling Narrative
Chapter VIII - Survivors' Stirring Stories
Chapter IX - How Astor Went To Death
Chapter X - Notable Woman Saved
Chapter XI - Major Butt, Martyr To Duty
Chapter XII - Mrs. Astor's Bravery
Chapter XIII - Lifeboats Bunglingly Handled
Chapter XIV - Not Like Bourgogne Disaster
Chapter XV - Boy's Desperate Fight For Life
Chapter XVI - Carpathia To The Rescue
Chapter XVII - Refused To Leave Husband
Chapter XVIII - Lady Duff-Gordon's Experiences
Chapter XIX - Senators Hear Startling Stories
Chapter XX - Surviving Operator's Experiences
Chapter XXI - The Funeral Ship And Its Dead
Chapter XXII - Inquiry By United States Senate
Hymn For The Survivors Of The Titanic
Great Marine Disasters From 1866 To 1911