“The Iceberg Patrol is a comparatively recent development in the naval service, isn’t it?” inquired Mr. Layton.
“Yes,” was the reply. “The thing that really stirred our own and other governments to action was the terrible disaster to the Titanic in nineteen hundred and twelve. The world rang with the horror of that. You, Mr. Layton, remember that an underwater spur of an iceberg ripped through her side as she turned in an effort to escape and sank her with the loss of hundreds of lives. The determination not to permit a thing of that kind to happen again caused the nations to get together and establish the Iceberg Patrol.”
“It was a frightful calamity,” remarked Mrs. Layton. “I suppose that the same thing has happened more than once, only on a smaller scale.”
“No doubt of it,” assented the captain. “The records of the sea are full of stories of vessels that have never reached port and of which no traces have ever been found. Many of these, no doubt, met the same fate as the Titanic, but as all on board were lost, the tale could never be told.
“You see,” he went on, as he settled himself deeper in his chair, “it used to be supposed that a captain could know of the presence of an iceberg in fog or at night by a sudden damp and vault-like chill that came into the air. But experiments have proved that this has very little basis in fact. It may have helped sometimes, but it is wholly unreliable.
“And if a ship ever strikes an iceberg, I suppose it’s good-night for the ship,” ventured Herb.
“It always is if it hits it full,” replied the captain. “The ship has no more chance than if it struck the Rock of Gibraltar. Why, do you know that some of those monster bergs are ten times the size of the Woolworth Building in New York City?”
“Gee!” exclaimed Jimmy. “The Woolworth Building is seven hundred and ninety-two feet high. Do you mean that the iceberg is ten times as high as that?”
“That’s exactly what I mean,” rejoined Captain Springer, with a smile. “Not that all of that shows above the water. You know that seven-eighths of an iceberg is submerged, so that of its total height only one-eighth rises above the surface. But if you measured from the bottom to the top of the berg it would be many thousands of feet in height. So you can see what chance a ship would have if it struck one of those floating mountains. It would be crushed like an eggshell.”
His hearers involuntarily shuddered at the thought.