Page 2 - National Geographic - How We Found Titanic

How Found TIT By ROBERT D. BALLARD wooDs HoLE ocEANocRApHrc rNsrrrurroN In association with JEAN-LOUIS MICHEL ,r..rt,tut FRAN9ATs DE R-ECHER.HE' pouR L'Exp,-orrArroN DEs MERS (TFREMER) CANNOT BELIEVE bow. A ventilator shaft lies summer to locate Titanic's my eyes. From the abyss open between the chains, and grave. A key figure throughout two and a half miles capstan heads stand on either the project was my French beneath the sea the bow side. Twin bitts for securing colleague and fellow chief of a great vessel emerges in mooring lines and spool-like scientist of the expedition, ghostly detail (right). I have rollers to guide them stand Jean-Louis Michel, seen oppo- never seen the ship-nor has along the port rail, bottom. In site me (o;boll.e) with his chin anyone for 73 years-yet I the peak of the bow an extra in his hand aboard the Woods know nearly every feature of anchor for emergencies lies Hole research ship Knon. her. She is S.S. ft'lazic, the beneath its handling boom. U. S. Navy Lt. ( jg.) George luxury liner lost after collision These historic photographs Rey joins us in studying plans with an iceberg in L9l2 at a are the work of U. S. and of.Titani:c's rigging, a constant cost of 1,522 lives. French scientists and tech- hazard to our undersea The sea has preserved her nicians who searched the vehicles. well. In this mosaic of two North Atlantic floor A haunting memento, the photographs the lines of the for nearly two watch (lef) was recovered deck's teak planking are visi- months last from the floating body of a vic- ble beneath a thin coating of tim on April 23, 1912, a week "snow" formed by remains of after the disaster. A water marine organisms. Other fea- stain on the dial indicates that tures stand out in the strobe the hour hand stood just short lights of our towed undersea of two o'clock when the watch vehicle. Twin anchor chains stopped. Titanic went down at run from windlasses, lower 2:2O a.m. local time. right, beneath a tangle of NATIONAL GEOGRAPAIC PHOTOGRAPHERS EMORY cables to hawsepipes near the KRISTOF (ABOVE) AND SRUCE DALE (LEfl) 696 A KEYED TO REO LENERS ON PAITTING, FOLLOWING PAGES