SECTION THROUGH ENGINE-ROOM OF THE KAISER WILHELM II, SHOWING INNER BOTTOM CARRIED UP SIDES OF SHIP, TO FORM DOUBLE SKIN] The fire protection also includes both an outside and an inside line of fire-mains. Fire-drill, with full pressure on the mains, is carried on every time the ship is in port, the outside lines of fire-mains being used. Once every three months there is a fire-drill with the inside line of mains. Every time the ship reaches her home port, both fire-drills and lifeboat drills are carried out under the close inspection of German Government officials. Now, the provision of fire bulkheads is such an excellent protection that it should be made compulsory upon every steamship of large carrying capacity. Moreover, they should be extended throughout the full tier of decks reserved for passenger accommodation. The bulkheads need not be of heavy construction, and they can be placed in the natural line of division of the staterooms, where they will cause no inconvenience. Special interest attaches to the _Imperator_ of the Hamburg-American Line, just now, because she is the latest and largest of those huge ocean liners, of which the _Olympic_ and _Titanic_ were the forerunners. This truly enormous vessel, 900 feet long and 96 feet broad, will displace, when fully loaded, 65,000 tons, or 5,000 tons more than the _Titanic_. A study of her hold plan and inboard profile, shown on page 163, proves that it is possible to provide for an even larger boiler and machinery plant than that of the _Titanic_, without making any of that sacrifice of safety, which is so evident in the arrangement of compartments and bulkheads on the _Titanic_. Not only are the bulkheads throughout the machinery and boiler compartments carried to the second deck above the water-line, but the same spaces, throughout their whole length, are protected by an inner skin in the form of the longitudinal bulkheads of the side bunkers. The large forward engine-room is also protected by two longitudinal bulkheads at the sides of the ship and the after engine-room is divided by a central longitudinal bulkhead. Protection against the spread of fire is assured by several bulkheads worked across the decks which are devoted to passenger accommodation. CHAPTER X CONCLUSIONS I. The fact that the _Titanic_ sank in two hours and thirty minutes after a collision demonstrates that the margin of safety against foundering in this ship was dangerously narrow. II. It is not to the point to say that the collision was of an unusual character and may never occur again. Collision with an iceberg is one of the permanent risks of ocean travel, and this stupendous calamity has shown how disastrous its results may be. We cannot afford to gamble with chance in a hazard whose issue involves the life or death of a whole townful of people.