WAVE vs. SHIP. Time was, not so very long ago, when the sea was undisputed master of tile ship and whenever Neptune saw fit to send his league-long rollers across the deep, the proudest ship of the day must needs stop at his bidding, if she did not indeed turn and run before the fury of the blast.
Of late years man has so multiplied horsepower and has applied so many ingenious contrivances for speed and strength and safety that Neptune umst have foreseen the humiliating day when he could'no longer hold the destinies of the bold sea voyager in his hand and no lon.~er say to hiln "Tlms far, and thus slowly shalt thou go... It was reserved for the steam turbine to supply the last mechanical device which was to give man the complete victory in his age-long struggle with the elements. In the combination of size and strength and power afforded by the latest turbine liners there has been developed a ship with the ability to drive at full speed and all day long into the heaviest seas that the stormy North Atlantic could pile across her path. Some two winters ago the " Lusitania " in weather which varied from a gale to a full hurricane averaged for 24 hours a speed between 26 and 27 land miles an hour. During that tremendous struggle ten-ton anchors were shifted and steel derrick booms were swung athwart-ship and twisted as if thev were no stouter than a boy's tin whistle. Yet the ship steamed into port practically intact and with not a rivet started in the whole fabric of her hull.
On the night in question the glass window-s in the pilothouse had been lowered, and the storm windows of solid wood. with a small, heavy glass port-light in the centre, had been raised. The stern of the vessel was lifting high on a receding sea, and the forecastle was awash, when a wave of gigantic proportions loomed up at the bow. This wave must have been some 35 feet high measured from the trough. The ship was running at half speed and met the sea with a speed of from I2 to 13 knots. When the mass struck the breastworks and pilot-house, every one of the stout wooden storm windows was burst in, and the heavv steel framing between the windows was forced several inches" into the pilot-house. The quartermaster was borne back against the bulkhead behind, carrying in his hands the wheel which was torn from its standard. At least 4ooo tons of water must have been swept over the forecastle deck, and the momentum was sufficient to crush the forecastle deck and the three decks below a few inches down into VOL. CLXIX, No. lOI1--12