Had the inside plating of the double bottom been carried up the sides and riveted on the inner flanges of these frames, as shown in the sketch on page 107, it would have served the purpose of an inner skin; and when the outer skin of her forward boiler-rooms was ruptured by the iceberg, it would have served to prevent the inflow of water to these two large compartments. Mr. Ismay, the President of the International Mercantile Marine Company, in his testimony at the Senate Investigation, stated that among the improvements, which would be made in the _Gigantic_, now under construction for the company, would be the addition of an inner skin. Doubtless he had in mind the construction above suggested. The 10-inch channel frames extended from the double bottom to the bridge deck, and some of these bars were 66 feet in length and weighed nearly 1 ton apiece. The frames were tied together along the full length of each deck by the deck beams of channel section, which, throughout the middle portion of the ship, were 10 inches deep and weighed as high as 1¼ tons apiece. The transverse stiffness of the framing was assured by stout bracket knees, riveted to the frames and deck beams at each point of connection, and by the 15 watertight bulkheads, which were riveted strongly to the bottom and sides of the ship, and also by 11 non-watertight bulkheads, which formed the inner walls of the coal bunkers on each side of the main bulkheads. The bridge, shelter, saloon, and upper decks were supported and stiffened by four lines of heavy longitudinal girders, worked in between the beams, which were themselves carried by solid round pillars placed at every third deck beam. In the boiler-rooms, below the middle deck, the load of the superincumbent decks was carried down to the double bottom by means of heavy round pillars. Such was the construction of the _Titanic_; and it will be agreed that, so far as the strength and integrity of the hull were concerned, it was admirably adapted to meet the heavy stresses which are involved in driving so great and heavy a ship through the tempestuous weather of the North Atlantic. The first sight of such a gigantic vessel as the _Titanic_ produces an impression of solidity and invulnerability, which is not altogether justified by the facts. For, to tell the truth, the modern steamship is a curious compound of strength and fragility. Her strength, as must be evident from the foregoing description of the framing of the _Titanic_, is enormous, and ample for safety. Her fragility and vulnerability lie in the fact that her framework is overlaid with a relatively thin skin of plating, an inch or so in thickness, which, while amply strong to resist the inward pressure of the water, the impact of the seas, and the tensile and compressive stresses due to the motion of the ship in a seaway, etc., is readily fractured by the blow of a collision.