from the berg: the forecastle deck was found to be covered with pieces of ice. Feeling the shock, Captain Smith rushed out of his cabin to the bridge, and in reply to his anxious enquiry was told by Murdock that ice had been struck and the emergency doors instantly closed. The officers roused by the collision went on deck: some to the bridge; others, while hearing nothing of the extent of the damage, saw no necessity for doing so. Captain Smith at once sent the carpenter below to sound the ship, and Fourth Officer Boxhall to the steerage to report damage. The latter found there a very dangerous condition of things and reported to Captain Smith, who then sent him to the mail-room; and here again, it was easy to see, matters looked very serious. Mail-bags were floating about and the water rising rapidly. All this was reported to the captain, who ordered the lifeboats to be got ready at once. Mr. Boxhall went to the chartroom to work out the ship's position, which he then handed to the Marconi operators for transmission to any ship near enough to help in the work of rescue. Reports of the damage done were by this time coming to the captain from many quarters, from the chief engineer, from the designer,--Mr. Andrews,--and in a dramatic way from the sudden appearance on deck of a swarm of stokers who had rushed up from below as the water poured into the boiler-rooms and coal-bunkers: they were immediately ordered down below to duty again. Realizing the urgent heed of help, he went personally to the Marconi room and gave orders to the operators to get into touch with all the ships they could and to tell them to come quickly. The assistant operator Bride had been asleep, and knew of the damage only when Phillips, in charge of the Marconi room, told him ice had been encountered. They started to send out the well-known "C.Q.D." message,--which interpreted means: C.Q. "all stations attend," and D, "distress," the position of the vessel in latitude and longitude following. Later, they sent out "S.O.S.," an arbitrary message agreed upon as an international code-signal.