So deep rooted was this conviction in the minds of seagoing men that when Senator Smith, of Michigan, chairman of the investigating committee, asked one of the surviving officers: “What was the purpose of the Titanic carrying her fourteen full-size lifeboats?” he naively replied; “To comply, I suppose, with the regulations of the London Board of Trade.” There has been no evidence to indicate that the Titanic lacked the proper number of life jackets, or life belts--one for every person aboard the ship--and it has not been proven that these life belts were not new and of proper quality and strength. Major Peuchen, of Toronto, one of the surviving passengers, however, in the course of his testimony, made two significant comments. He said that when the Carpathia, on the morning after the disaster, steamed through a lot of the Titanic’s floating wreckage, he was surprised to note great quantities of broken bits of cork, such as are used in life preservers. He was astonished also that he did not see a larger number of floating bodies. “I have always supposed,” said Major Peuchen, who is an experienced yachtsman, “that a life preserver in good condition would sustain a dead body as well as a live one.” STEAMING AT 21 KNOTS. It has been demonstrated by ample evidence that at the time the Titanic hit the iceberg she was steaming at the undiminished speed of twenty-one knots an hour into a zone littered with icebergs and floating ice fields, warning of which her officers had received hours before by wireless from several other ships, including the Amerika, of the Hamburg-American Line. When day broke on Monday, according to Mr. Lane, at least twenty icebergs surrounded the Carpathia, the largest of which was 150 feet high. They were within a six-mile radius. In the chart room, tucked into the corner of a frame above the table where the navigating officers of the Titanic did their mathematical work, was a written memorandum of the latitude and longitude wherein two large icebergs had been reported directly in the track. Mr. Boxhall had worked out this position under Captain Smith’s instructions. Mr. Lightoller, the second officer, was familiar with it, and when his watch ended at 10 o’clock Sunday night and he surrendered the post on the bridge to the first officer, Mr. Murdock, the remark was made that they would probably “be getting up into the ice during Mr. Murdock’s watch.” Despite all this the Titanic was rushing on, driving at railroad speed toward the port of New York and “a record for a maiden voyage.” It was a cloudless and starlit night with no sea running. No extra lookout was posted in the “ship’s eyes,” the most advanced position on the vessel’s deck. Up in the crow’s nest Fleet and Lee, both experienced lookouts, were keeping a sharp watch forward. They had been duly warned of ice by the pair of lookouts whom they had relieved. UNAIDED BY SEA GLASSES.