University of Virginia Library

IT is a long time since any modern vessel of importance has gone down under Nature's attack, and in general the floating city of steel laughs at the wind and waves. She is not, however, proof against disaster. The danger lies in her own power—in the tens of thousands of horse power with which she may be driven into another ship or into an iceberg standing cold and unyielding as a wall of granite. In view of this fact it is of the utmost importance that present-day vessels should be thoroughly provided with the

most efficient life-saving devices. These would seem more important than fireplaces, squash-courts and many other luxuries with which the Titanic was provided. The comparatively few survivors of the ill-fated Titanic were saved by the life-boats. The hundreds of others who went down with the vessel perished because there were no life-boats to carry them until rescue came.