experience, negligence can not be said to have had any part; and in the absence of negligence it is, in my opinion, impossible to fix Capt. Smith with blame. It is, however, to be hoped that the last has been heard of the practice and that for the future it will be abandoned for what we now know to be more prudent and wiser measures. What was a mistake in the case of the _Titanic_ would without doubt be negligence in any similar case in the future. THE COLLISION. Mr. Lightoller turned over the ship to Mr. Murdoch, the first officer, at 10 o'clock, telling him that the ship was within the region where ice had been reported. He also told him of the message he had sent to the crow's nest, and of his conversation with the master, and of the latter's orders. The ship appears to have run on, on the same course, until, at a little before 11.40, one of the lookouts in the crow's nest struck three blows on the gong, which was the accepted warning for something ahead, following this immediately afterward by a telephone message to the bridge "Iceberg right ahead." Almost simultaneously with the three-gong signal Mr. Murdoch, the officer of the watch, gave the order "Hard-a-starboard," and immediately telegraphed down to the engine room "Stop. Full speed astern." The helm was already "hard over," and the ship's head had fallen off about two points to port, when she collided with an iceberg well forward on her starboard side. Mr. Murdoch at the same time pulled the lever over which closed the water-tight doors in the engine and boiler rooms. The master "rushed out" onto the bridge and asked Mr. Murdoch what the ship had struck. Mr. Murdoch replied: An iceberg, sir. I hard-a-starboarded and reversed the engines, and I was going to hard-a-port round it, but she was too close. I could not do any more. I have closed the water-tight doors. From the evidence given it appears that the _Titanic_ had turned about two points to port before the collision occurred. From various experiments subsequently made with the steamship _Olympic_, a sister ship to the _Titanic_, it was found that traveling at the same rate as the _Titanic_, about 37 seconds would be required for the ship to change her course to this extent after the helm had been put hard-a-starboard. In this time the ship would travel about 466 yards, and allowing for the few seconds that would be necessary for the order to be given, it may be assumed that 500 yards was about the distance at which the iceberg was sighted either from the bridge or crow's nest. That it was quite possible on this night, even with a sharp lookout at the stemhead, crow's nest, and on the bridge, not to see an iceberg at this distance is shown by the evidence of Capt. Rostron, of the _Carpathia_. The injuries to the ship, which are described in the next section, were of such a kind that she foundered in 2 hours and 40 minutes.