he did strike an iceberg it could do irreparable damage to his
stout ship, was scarce one in a hundred. So he took that chance also.
He gambled with Death, as a thousand speed-driven captains had gambled
before. This time it was Death's turn to win.

A gamble even more reprehensible was that of the steamship companies,
who had grown so sure their ships would not sink that they no longer
provided sufficient means of escape from them. Why load a vessel down
with useless life-boats, which only hung the year in and year out,
blocking up space? Every foot of that space was valuable. It might make
room for an extra passenger, or provide an extra amusement to draw
traffic. What voyager ever counted life-boats, or worked out the awful
calculation, so obvious now, that there was only rescue space provided
for one-third of the number of souls aboard? Was not the ship
"unsinkable" after all?

The _Titanic_ is gone. Our sorrow for her is becoming but a memory. Our
ships carry lifeboats sufficient now; they are compelled to by law. And
our sea captains run on safer lines; that, too, the law has made
compulsory. But it will be long before man's overweening
self-confidence rises from the shock which has been given to his belief
in his mechanical ability. Nature is not conquered yet. Ocean has still
a strength beyond ours. Ships are not unsinkable; and Death will still
take his toll of bold men's lives in the future as he has done in the
past. We know that cowardice costs more than courage, but it is not so
tragically costly as blind foolhardiness.

OUR PROGRESSING KNOWLEDGE OF LIFE SURGERY PERPETUATES THE BODY'S ORGANS

A.D. 1912

GENEVIEVE GRANDCOURT Prof. R. LEGENDRE

Several years ago a wealthy Swedish manufacturer of dynamite left, by
his will, a fund for the providing of a large prize to be conferred
each year upon the person who has accomplished most for the peaceful
progress of mankind. This annual sum of forty thousand dollars, which
is called from its donor the "Nobel prize," was, in October, 1912,
conferred upon a surgeon, Dr. Alexis Carrel, for his remarkable work in
the study of the life of the tissues and organs which exist in the
human body.

Even before this public recognition of his work, Dr. Carrel had in the
summer of 1912 created a furor among the savants of Paris by the
announcement of what he had accomplished. Carrel, though a native-born
Frenchman, is an American by education and citizenship, and t