Lessons+1+-+3

=Lesson 1 - A Night to Remember=

As the sea closed over the //Titanic//, Lady Cosmos, Duff Gordon in Boat 1 remarked to her secretary Miss Francatelli, "There is your beautiful nightdress gone."toc

A lot more than Miss Francatelli's nightgown vanished that April night, Even more than the larg3est liner in the world, her cargo, and the lives of 1,502 people.

Never again would men fling a ship into an ice field, heedless of warnings, putting their whole trust in a few thousand tons of steel and rivets. From then on Atlantic liners took ice messages seriously, steered clear, or slowed down. Nobody believed in the "unsinkable ship."

Nor would icebergs any longer prowl the seas untended.After the //Titanic// sank, the American and British governments established the International Ice Patrol, and today Coast Guard cutters shepherd errant icebergs that drift toward the steamer lanes. the winter lane itself was shifted further south, as an extra precaution.

And there were no more liners with only part time wireless. Hence forth every passenger ship had a 24-hour radio watch. Never again could the world fall apart while a Cyril Evans lay sleeping off-duty only ten miles away.

It was also the last time a liner put to sea without enough lifeboats. The 46,328 ton Titanic sailed under hopelessly outdated safety regulations. An absurd formula determined lifeboat requirements; all British vessels over 10,000 tons must carry 16 lifeboats with a capacity of 5,500 cubic feet,pl;us enough rafts and floats for 75 percent of the capacity of the lifeboats.

For the //Titanic// this worked out at 9,662 people. Actually, there were boats for 1,178 - the White Star Line complained that nobody appreciated their thoughtfulness. Even so, this took care of only 52 percent of the 2,207 people on board, and only 30 percent of her total capacity. From then on the rules and formulas were simple indeed - lifeboats for everybody.

And it was the end of class distinction in filling the boats. The White Star Line always denied anything of the kind - and the investigators backed them up - yet there's overwhelming evidence that the steerage took a beating; Daniel Buckley kept from going into First Class. . . Olaus Abelseth released from the poop deck as the last boat pulled away. . . . . Steward Hart convoying two little groups of women topside, while hundreds were kept below. . . steerage passengers crawling along the crane from the well deck aft. . . others climbing vertical ladders to escape the well deck forward.

Then there were the people Colonel Gracie, [Charles] Lightoller and others saw surging up from below, just before the end. Until this moment Gracie was sure the women were all off - so he was appalled to see dozens of them suddenly appear. The statistics suggest who they were -- the women (three by choice) .... 15 of 93 Second Class women. . . . and 81 of 179 third Class women.

Not to mention the children. Except for Lorraine Allison, all 29 first and Second Class children were saved, but only 23 out of the 76 steerage children.

Neither the chance to be chivalrous nor the fruits of chivalry seemed to go with a Third Class passage.

absurd appeal chivalrous distinction errant evidence formula heedless regulation statistics
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=Lesson 2 - The Railway Train=
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I like to see it lap the miles,And lick the valleys up, And stop to feed itself at tanks; And then, prodigious, step

Around a pile of mountains, And, supercilious, peer In shanties by the sides of roads; And then a quarry pare

To fit its sides, and crawl between, Complaining all the while In horrid, hooting stanza; Then chase itself down the hill

And neigh like Boanerges; Then, punctual as a star, Stop - docile and omnipotent - At its own stable door. Listen to the poem here!

docile lap neigh omnipotent pare peer prodigious punctual stanza supercilious
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=Lesson 3 - Cathedral: The Story of its Construction=

On April 14, 1253, the bishop of Chutreaux blessed the first foundation stone as it was lowered onto the bed of small stones covering the clay at the bottom of the excavation.

The mortar men were ready with exact mixtures of sand, lime, and water. Laborers carried the mortar down the ladders to the mason who would lay the stones on top of each other, troweling a layer of mortar between each stone and each layer of stones. When it was dry the mortar would permanently bind the stones together.

The master mason checked continually with his level to make sure the stones were perfectly horizontal and with his plumb line to make sure that the wall was perfectly vertical. Any mistake in the foundation would endanger the walls that was to be build on top of it.

When the foundation was complete, work began on the walls. The walls of a Gothic cathedral like Chutreaux's consist of the piers or columns that support the vault and roof and space between the piers that is filled for the most part with the tracery -- the stone framework of the windows - and the small areas of solid-wall construction. The piers of the choir at Chutreaux were to be one hundred and sixty feet high and six to eight feet thick. They were constructed of hundreds of pieces of cut stone. the tracer, all of which was cut from templates, was cemented into place along with iron reinforcing bars as the piers were being built.

Note: The cathedral of Chutreaux is imaginary, but the building techniques described above are accurate.

bind continual exact excavation framework level pier plumb reinforce template
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**Test on Lessons 1 - 3**