It was announced last Saturday that the President of the
Board of Trade had appointed a technical committee to advise him on the internal subdivision of vessels by means of water- tight bulkheads and other means. Hitherto passenger vessels have relied chiefly on transverse bulkheads for safety, and the strong committee appointed by Mr. Buxton will no doubt guide him in the difficult question of combining longitudinal bulkheads with these. Obviously if a longitudinal watertight
compartment is large it will cause the ship, when water is admitted to the compartment, to list to that side. In an extreme case the ship would capsize, and in any case a list makes the launching of boats extremely difficult. The tendency to list might be corrected by admitting a compensating amount of water to the other side of the ship. But the whole problem is very intricate. The excessive sub- division of ships introduces new dangers. In the Navy longi- tudinal bulkheads are used, but it does not follow that the planning of men-of-war can be adopted easily in the merchant service. We think, however, that some combination of the two sorts of compartment will probably become general in large passenger ships.
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