The usual wireless messages were sent in all directions from
the sinking ship, and distress rockets were fired. At midnight the wireless messages were picked up by the Cunard liner Carpathia.' She reached the scene of the wreck at 4 a.m. on Monday, and took on board all the passengers from the twenty boats. When the survivors is the Carpathia ' were landed on Thursday night at New York utterly contradictory stories of the disaster were told. The weight of evidence, however, seems to prove that the Titanic ' did not strike the berg with any great violence. We think it likely that she lifted on the submerged ice, which probably extended a very long way from the visible peak, and the glancing impact tore a long hole in her side. If these were the eir- emilatances many of those on board may actually have been in doubt as to whether the vessel would founder at all. Men's misgivings generally adapt them- selves to the violence of the shock. Among the wilder stories of the survivors was one that the captain and chief engineer of the 'Titanic' had shot themselves. We do not believe this for a moment, though revolvers may have been used by the officers if there was any panic in filling the boats. Nor do we believe that the boilers of the Titanic' exploded and broke the ship in half. That kind of story is always told when a steamship founders. Those in the small boats no doubt watched the end of the Titanic' from a considerable distance, and have only a vague notion of what happened.
