THE CITY OF PARIS

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 9, 1890

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 16, No. 22.

THE CITY OF PARIS.

HER LATE DISASTER PREDICTED.

THE New York correspondent of the Cincinnati Commercial Gazette gives the following interesting facts in relation to the late disaster to the steamer City of Paris, about which there was such widespread apprehension:—

“Among the passengers of the City of Paris, with whom a certain engineer was on intimate terms, was Mayor Bookwalter, of Springfield, Ohio. He says that after the first day out from New York, the mayor obtained access to the engine-room, where, upon critical inspection of the machinery, shaft, etc., he became alarmed for the safety of the steamer, but to verify his apprehension of danger, which was created by mistrust of the durability of a portion of the engine, he went to work calculating the tensile strength, force, resistance, friction, atmospheric pressures, etc., to which one particular portion of the machinery, weighing some fifteen tons, was subjected; and, figuring from its first revolution to the present date, he was alarmed at the result, which denoted that twenty-four hours was the limit of its durability.

“The result of his calculation he imparted to his two or three scientific fellow-voyagers, asserting that the engines could not last twenty-four hours. They tried to reason him out of his whim, but in vain. Notwithstanding his prediction failed the first and second day, he remained firm to his conviction and mathematical calculation that the limit of endurance of the engines of the steamer had expired, and he was awaiting the inevitable crash. In a few hours it came, inflicting even more serious damage than anticipated. This to me is an incident demonstrating marvelous ability in the Ohio mechanic, whose fortune of millions would seem to be a meritorious acquisition. His engineering friends were profoundly impressed with the erudition and mathematical precision of Mayor Bookwalter.”