Amerika Encountered Menace in the
Path of Ill-Fated ship and Sent
Wireless Messages of Position
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New York, April 16--[Special]--The Titanic was warned on Sunday, a few hours before it struck, that there were two large icebergs in its path and it sent the news ashore as it proceeded.
The local hydrographic office in Broad street received today the ice report of the Hamburg-American liner Amerika, which sailed from here on Thursday for Plymouth. It passed on the afternoon of Sunday in latiture 41 degrees, 27 minutes, longitude 50 degrees, 8 minutes, two large icebergs. Shortly afterward it got in wireless touch with the Titanic and as the hydrographic expert puts it, " reported by radio telegraph" that it had passed the bergs and where they were.
The Titanic's commander, anxious to let his fellow navigators know of the danger lurking in their course, transmitted the news about the two big bergs to Cape Race from where it was relayed to Washington. Washington sent it to the office here this morning for the benefit of Atlantic navigators.
Bulletin in U. S. Office
It appeared on the bulletin directly under this announcement in the daily memorandum of the office:
"Collision with iceberg, April 14, latitude 41 degrees 46 minutes, longitude 50 degrees 14 minutes. The British steamer Titanic collided with an iceberg seriously damaging her bows, extent not definitely known."
This was written on Monday afternoon. Lieut. John Grady, the hydrographer in charge of the Broad street office, looked at the one date and the two positions and formed some conclusions.
It was apparent to him that the Titanic probably had shattered itself against one of the bergs about which its commander had taken the trouble to send out warnings. The postion of the Titanic when it received the news of the big bergs--and they must have been monsters, as the conservative skipper of the Amerika Capt. Knuth, is not in the habit of saying things are "large" unless he means it--was probably many miles east of the postion in which the Amerika passed the ice, which was doubtless to the north of her.
How long the Titanic may have run after she got the warning from the Amerika connot be guessed, for the Amerika does not give the hour. It is reasonably certain that Capt. Smith knew that the bergs were in his course
Bergs 22 Miles from Disaster
The bergs, when sighted by the Amerika, were about twenty-two miles south by east of the spot where the Titanic met disaster later. The Labrador current and the gulf stream are at odds at this point, and it is reasonable to believe that the bergs, or the great berg that the Titanic rammed, had drifted twenty-two miles from the place where the Amerika reported it, in the hours that passed while the Titanic was rushing to its fate.
Capt. Smith cannot be censured for taking a northerly route. He was even closer to the east bound or lower course than to the prescribed west bound route. But that he knew that there were bergs in his course is evident by the transmission of the message bearing the name of his ship, and doubtless signed by one of his officers, to Cape Race station and thence to Washington.
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