 |
Web Hosting by Netfirms | Free Domain Names by Netfirms |
|
|
|
SUPERSTITIOUS? READ THIS
In 1898, 14 years before the Titanic sank, Morgan Robertson wrote a novella about a giant transatlantic passenger liner. Like the Titanic his ship was the largest ship afloat, with specifications very close to those of the Titanic. Also like Titanic, Robertson's fictional ship was brand new, considered unsinkable and sank after striking an iceberg on a voyage across the Atlantic. Titan on her third trip; Titanic on her maiden voyage. Both sank on a cold April night with high loss of life. The name Robertson christened his ship? The "Titan." Other comparisons of the fictional ship with the Titanic, Titan figures first:
- - - -
In April 1935, 13 years to the month after the Titanic sank, another ship was plowing across the restless seas of the North Atlantic heading for the North American coast: A tramp steamer burdened with a load of coal for Canada. William Reeves, one of the crew, came on watch late one cold April night. The sea was unusually calm. It had an unreal, oily look to it and Reeves glanced nervously about the darkened sea as he took his place on watch. As he did so, he became unreasonably afraid.
Reeves sensed danger and wanted to sound the alarm. But he hesitated. He noted his ship was now in exactly the same spot where the Titanic was lost . The weather was also the same: Clear. Pitch black. Glass calm sea. He remembered the Titanic and Robertson's prophetic story of the Titan. He reflected on the name which had been bestowed on his little tramp steamer. And the strange fact that he had been born on the very day in 1912 that the Titanic sank. That memory did it. Reeves stopped hesitating and yelled out: "Danger ahead!" The ship slammed into reverse and drifted to a stop.
Looming out of the darkness ahead, unseen by Reeves when he yelled, was an iceberg into which the ship would have smashed, head-on. The ice closed in around the ship and soon it was locked in an icefield - a prisoner of the icy sea. It took two icebreakers, summoned from Newfoundland, to free it. The name of Reeves ship? The Titanian....
- - - -
The Girl with the Long Blond HairShe was a beautiful, young lady with long, blond hair. No papers; no identity. Just an anonymous body, lying on the cold, morgue slab. Unidentified. Unclaimed. Unknown. But the image of her lying there would haunt the undertaker for the rest of his life... One spring day, in late April, 1912, the telegraph chattered to life in rural railway stations across the Canadian Maritimes as the call went out for undertakers. Professional help was urgently needed in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Almost 200 bodies, plucked from the frigid Atlantic water, had just been landed from the cable-laying ship Mackay-Bennett, newly returned from the search for bodies.
In the sleepy community of Newcastle, New Brunswick, town undertaker William Hogan answered the call. He sprang into action, loading all his available coffins into a freight car (he was the town coffin maker as well as the sole undertaker) and, with all the embalming fluid he had in stock, set off on the jolting 250 mile trip to Halifax by the next train.
The next few days passed in a busy blur as William went about his thankless task. It was a job, and someone had to do it. And it really didn’t bother him. At least, not much. Not that much that is until he met the girl with the long blond hair lying there waiting. Waiting for someone to claim her. She was so beautiful. And, unlike the others, there was nothing on her body that would reveal her identity.
They waited. But no one claimed her body. And finally, they buried her, just one more victim of the Titanic. The undertaker said later that he never felt so bad. It was such a shame. Her life had just begun. The image of her lying there would stay with him for the rest of his days. Today, his daughter says “he always used to talk about her long, golden hair...”
FACTS & FIGURES: HOW LONG WAS THAT SHIP?
With a length of 882.5 feet (269 meters) and a beam 92 feet (28 meters) the Titanic stretched 4 city blocks (measure it the next time you're out for a walk!) and towered 11 stories from the bottom of the keel to the top of its funnels. In terms of sheer size, if we stood the ship on its stern in the middle of New York City, it would the reach to the 80th floor of the Empire State Building - that’s five floors below the observation deck. And, for those of you who live down under, R.M.S. Titanic would tower more than 8 stories higher than the Rialto Towers in downtown Melbourne - the tallest office building in the southern hemisphere.
Here are some other Titanic comparisons:
So you're barreling along the Interstate at 55 miles an hour (88 kph). Every 10 seconds you travel the length of the Titanic, from the stern to the bow. If you don't have a watch handy, you can count off the seconds like this: "One Hippopotamus. Two Hippopotamus..."
Take the town of Sag Harbor, Long Island, Dungog, Australia, or Your Town if it has a population of 2,500. Depopulate it. Pack everyone on board a boat and have them sail across the Atlantic. Now, visualize that empty town sitting there: The silent houses. The shops. The parked, unused cars. The lonely dogs barking... Now you have some idea of how many people were on the Titanic.
SELECTED TITANIC LINKS
Return to Scale Reproductions Titanic Page * Go to Scale Reproductions Home Index
Contents Copyright © 1998 D.S. Smith