How strangly imagination may inticipate history has seldom been remarkably shown then in the deasaster to the R.M.S. Titanic, It was foretold in many of its details in a curiouse little noval by Morgan Robertson, Intitled,"Futility", or "Wreck of the Titan". Published in the United States fourteen years befor the R.M.S. Titanic sank. The story tells how a monster liner, "R.M.S. Titan" was the largest craft afloat and the greatest of the works of man. In her construction and maintinance were involved every science, profession and trade known to civilization. She was beleived to be unsinkable, undiestructable. She carried over 3,000 souls and she made her fourth and final voyage in April.

The Ship

She was built from steel throughout, and for passenger traffic only. From her keel upwards she had a sharp dead rise or slant, like that of a yatch. R.M.S. Titan was over 800ft. long and 70,000 tons displacment. The ship used three small starter engines to open the throttles of the three large drive engines wich turned the three mammoth propellers, one centered between the two wing propellers. From her lofty bridge ran hidden telegraph lines to the bow, aft, stern engine rooms, crow's nest on the foremast and to all points were work was done. Each wire terminates at a dial with a moveable indicator containing in its scope every order and answer required. Within her hull fifty feet below her main deck in the infurno noise and heat, was the fire hold with 80 furnaces, like 80 hungury mouths demanding to be fead by the many stokers and coal passers who tended to its every need. The ship below was sectioned with 19 watertight compartments wich could be closed with a turn of a lever. The ship would still float with 9 compartments flooded. The Titan was considered practiclly unsinkable and indistructable, she carried as few life boats as safty laws would allowed, twentyfour in number with a capacity of around five hundered persons. Each of the three thousand births contained a cork jacket while along the rails was twenty circular life buoys as the law required. There were no liferafts.

The people

On her bridge were officers who besides being the pick of the Royal Navy had passed rigid exsaminations in all studies the pertainded to the winds, tides and currents and geography of the sea. The same professional standards allpied to the commen seamen aswell. Two brass bands and two orchrestras and a theatrical company entertained the passengers during the waking hours, while a corps of physicians and clergymen attended to the physical and spiritual needs of all on board. A fire company was also among the cadry and entertained and soothed the fears of the nervouse passengers by daily practice of their apparatus.

The Voyage

East of Sandy Hook the pilot would disembark and the voyage would begin. In view of thr Titan's absolute superiority to other craft she would steam at full speed, around 25 knots or 50 feet persecond, in fog, storms or sunshine and on the northren lane route, summer and winter. As R.M.S. Titan moved slowly to sea the sailors set the triangular sails on the fore and aft masts to aid the massive hulk's propolision. The passengers dispersed themselves as suited their several tastes. Some werre seated in steamer chairs, well wraped for though it was April the sea air was chili. The great ship's heading was east towards Daunt's Rock via the northren route. The order was given and the quartermaster pulls the telegraph handle forward, Full ahead.

The wrech of the R.M.S. Royal Age

In the darkness of night a vicious half gail blowing from the northeast added to the speed of the ship. A head sea, choppy as compared to the lengtht of the ship dealt the Titan succive blows. Clouds of ocean spray reaching as high as the crow's nest on the forward mast, batters the windows on the pilot house on the bridge with a force that would have smashed threw ordinary glass. A fog bank thick and impenatrable, envelopes the great ship as she steams forward at un deminished speed. At midnight came the change of the watch, the quartermaster calls, "Crow's nest there?!" "Sir, Alls well." came the responce. First one then two and then three bells were struck and answered with the same routien. As the boatswain and his men were about to lite a final smoke, a cry came from the crow's nest startleing all, "Something ahead, can't make it out". The first officer sprange to the engineroom telegraph and grasped the lever. From the crow's nest came another shout, "Hard aport, ship ahead on a starboard tack, dead ahead" came the cry. In the darkness and fog ahead was finally seen from the bridge lookout the squar sails of a deep laiden ship crossing the Titan's bow. There was hardly a crash, a slight jar shook the ship. Sliding down the foretop mast stay and rattleing down on the deck came a shower of spares, sails, blocks and wire rope. Then on both sides of the Titan shot past two dark and shadowy shaps, the two halves of the R.M.S Royal Age. From one of these shapes was heard a sailory voice: "May the curse of God light on you and your ship, you brass bound murderers.

The Wreck of the Titan

A cry from the crow's nest splits the air "Ice," Yelled the lookout: "Ice ahead, Ice right under the bows." The first officer runs amidships and the captian who remained there sprang to the engine room telegraph and this time the lever is turned. seventyfive thousand tons dead weight rushing headlong through the fog at 50 feet per second (25 knots). An ice feild was seen of wich arose from the water at an incline to a hight of around a hundred feet in her track. As the bow began to rise the music from the theater stoped and among the bable of shouts and cries of all onboard was heard a sound of steel scrapping over ice. A blackburg, not the commen iceburg wich can be seen as white but one haveing turned in the water did not reflect in the night the light of the moon.

The ice recieved the Titan with her keel cutting the ice like a steel runner of an ice boat and her great weight resting on the starboard bilge, she rose higher and higher til the propellers and the stern were half exsposed to the air, then meeting a spiral rise of ice under her port bow she heeled overbalanced and crashed down apon her starboard side. The hold down bolts for the boilers and the triple exspansion engines never intended to support such weight from a perpendicular flooring snaped sending the great masses of equitment crashing through to the gunnels like so many lose cannons.

The titan begins her desent from the ice to the water. Steam escaping from the ship's inners through the torn and twisted starboard wall testified to the carnage inside, Titan moves slowly backwards to the sea where she floated low on her side a dying leviathon groaning from her mortal blow. The holocaust complete the mighty Titan and most of her 3,000 souls on board slips beneath the sea.

The book, written by Morgan Robertson, 1898.