all the heavy things one could think of had been thrown downstairs from the top of a house, smashing each other, and the stairs and everything in the way. “Several apparently authentic accounts have been given in which definite stories of explosions have been related--in some cases even with wreckage blown up and the ship broken in two; but I think such accounts will not stand close analysis. In the first place, the fires had been withdrawn and the steam allowed to escape some time before she sank, and the possibility from explosion from this cause seems very remote.” _Second:_ Did the ship break in two? I was on the _Carpathia_ when I first heard any one make reference to this point. The seventeen-year-old son of Mr. John B. Thayer, “Jack” Thayer, Jr., and his young friend from Philadelphia, R. N. Williams, Jr., the tennis expert, in describing their experiences to me were positive that they saw the ship split in two. This was from their position in the water on the starboard quarter. “Jack” Thayer gave this same description to an artist, who reproduced it in an illustration in the New York _Herald_, which many of us have seen. Some of the passengers, whose names I have just mentioned, are also cited by the newspapers as authority for the statements that the ship “broke in two,” that she “buckled amidships,” that she “was literally torn to pieces,” etc. On the other hand, there is much testimony available which is at variance with this much-advertised sensational newspaper account. Summing up its investigation of this point the Senate Committee’s Report reads: “There have been many conflicting statements as to whether the ship broke in two, but the preponderance of evidence is to the effect that she assumed an almost end-on position and sank intact.” This was as Lightoller testified before the Committee, that the _Titanic’s_ decks were “absolutely intact” when she went down. On this point, too, Beesley is in accord, from his viewpoint in the lifeboat some distance away out of danger, whence, more composedly than others, he could see the last of the ill-fated ship as the men lay on their oars watching until she disappeared. “No phenomenon,” he continues, “like that pictured in some American and English papers occurred--that of the ship breaking in two, and the two ends being raised above the surface. When the noise was over, the _Titanic_ was still upright like a column; we could see her now only as the stern and some 150 feet of her stood outlined against the star-specked sky, looming black in the darkness, and in this position she continued for some minutes--I think as much as five minutes--but it may have been less. Then, as sinking back a little at the stern, I thought she slid slowly forwards through the water and dived slantingly down.” [Illustration: THOMAS ANDREWS, Jr. (Designer of the Titanic and Managing Director of Messrs. Harland & Wolff, Ltd.)] [Illustration: JOSEPH BELL (Chief Engineer)]