Scientific American Supplement - 14 March 1914
Front Page of the Scientific American Supplement for 14 March 1914 Featuring the New White Star Liner Britannic. GGA Image ID # 1016d1d694
The Transatlantic Steamer Britannic - A Fifty-Thousand Ton Vessel. GGA Image ID # 1016de8944
The unprecedented activity has marked the progress of the transatlantic shipping world within the last two or three years. No less than four magnificent steamships of some 50,000 tons displacement have been launched or put in service during this period: the “Imperator,” the “Vaterland,” the “Aquitania,” and, quite recently, the “Britannic.”
One has almost come to expect such additions to the great transatlantic fleet as an annual event. The contrast between these floating hotels of the twentieth century and the ships that established a connection between the two continents about the middle of last century is only one of the many marks of that general advance in our industrial civilization which is so characteristic of our age.
But luxurious traveling, however much appreciated, is not the first requisite. “Safety first” is the slogan of the day, to which a somewhat sinister emphasis has been lent within recent memory by the greatest disaster in the history of navigation. '
And the cry for safety first has been heeded as far as is humanly possible in the construction of the modern leviathan depicted on this page, the “Britannic” of the White Star Line, launched on the 26th day of February of this year.
A highly developed system of division into bulkheads and the provision of a double skin affords the best protection against accident obtainable by modern shipbuilders’ technique. How far caution has been carried will be understood from the fact that the “Britannic” will be kept afloat even if six compartments are flooded.
We shall await with interest the arrival, in due time, of the new ship in our harbor.
Scientific American Supplement, Volume LXXVII, No. 1993, New York, 14 March 1914. Partial Issue includes pages 161-162, 167-170 only.
