MR. LOWE: No, sir; we do not use a chart. If we wish to place the position on a chart so that we may know the locality we may do so, because we have charts there.
SENATOR SMITH: You have them there for that purpose?
MR. LOWE: But we work them out by tables and other things ­ books.
SENATOR SMITH: By these tables you work out the ship's position?
MR. LOWE: Yes, sir.
SENATOR SMITH: From the astronomical observations?
MR. LOWE: Yes, sir.
SENATOR SMITH: And the course of the ship?
MR. LOWE: Yes, sir; we work out the course, too.
SENATOR SMITH: Do you determine from these observations whether the ship is on its course?
MR. LOWE: Yes, sir.
SENATOR SMITH: Did you have any part in determining the course and position of the Titanic on Sunday afternoon and evening?
MR. LOWE: I worked the course from noon to what we call the "corner"; that is, 42 north, 47 west. I really forget the courses now. It is 60-degrees 33 1/2-minutes west ­ that is as near as I can remember ­ and 162 miles to the corner.
SENATOR SMITH: From those data are you able to say whether the ship was on its true course at the time of the collision?
MR. LOWE: I do not know, sir. I do not know where she was steaming at the time of the collision. I was in bed.
SENATOR SMITH: Do you know what the ship's position was at the time of the collision?
MR. LOWE: Yes; I know what her position was.
SENATOR SMITH: State it.
MR. LOWE: (referring to book). Latitude 41-degrees 46-minutes north and 50-degrees 13-minutes west longitude.
SENATOR SMITH: From the position of the ship at the point stated, are you able to say whether she was on her true course at that time?
MR. LOWE: Which course is that? To which course do you refer?
SENATOR SMITH: I refer to the course of the ship was taking, which I understand is a recognized course, or lane, and well understood by vessel men, and a part of the regulations of your company.
MR. LOWE: Yes, sir; that is the track.
SENATOR SMITH: Now answer my previous question.
MR. LOWE: You can easily tell, sir, whether she was on the track or not.
SENATOR SMITH: I want you to tell me.
MR. LOWE: I can easily tell.
SENATOR SMITH: Do it.
MR. LOWE: I cannot without anything, sir; I must have books.
SENATOR SMITH: Have you got a chart, so that you can?
MR. LOWE: I have got nothing.
SENATOR SMITH: You say "track"?
MR. LOWE: Yes, sir; track.
SENATOR SMITH: Are those tracks well understood by mariners, vessel men?
MR. LOWE: Yes; everybody knows them, and we all try to go along that track.
SENATOR SMITH: How many tracks are there that are recognized by your company?
MR. LOWE: I do not know.
SENATOR SMITH: In the north Atlantic?
MR. LOWE: I am a stranger in this part.
SENATOR SMITH: What is that?
MR. LOWE: You must remember this is my first voyage across here.
SENATOR SMITH: I understand.
MR. LOWE: And I do not know.
SENATOR SMITH: I am not looking for any more information than you have, but I would like to know if you know whether there is a north track and a south track.
MR. LOWE: Yes, sir; there are two tracks, a north track and a south track.
SENATOR SMITH: I would like to know whether ships going from Southampton to New York on this White Star Line are supposed to take the north track or the south track?
MR. LOWE: That is left to the commander, sir.
SENATOR SMITH: And you do not know?
MR. LOWE: I do not know.
SENATOR SMITH: Do you know whether upon this voyage the Titanic took the north track or the south track?
MR. LOWE: We can tell you if you have a track chart.
SENATOR SMITH: I am going to have you work that out, but I wanted to clear up any confusion over these two tracks. As I understand it, through the north Atlantic there is a north track, or lane, or route, from Southampton to New York?
MR. LOWE: Yes, sir.
SENATOR SMITH: And there is a south track, or lane, or route, from New York to Southampton?
MR. LOWE: It is the same track as the one the other way.
SENATOR SMITH: What I want to know is whether this ship was on the north track or the south track, and I will ask you to figure that out a little later, when you get the chart.
MR. LOWE: I think she was on the north track.
SENATOR SMITH: Why makes you think so?
MR. LOWE: By the general run of things. But, anyhow, we can find that out.
SENATOR SMITH: Were you on duty on Sunday evening the night of the accident.
MR. LOWE: I was on duty on Sunday evening, sir, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., and at 8 p.m. I went below.
SENATOR SMITH: Were you on duty again that night, to the time of the accident?
MR. LOWE: I was not, sir.
SENATOR SMITH: And where were you assigned; where was your station during those two hours, from 6 to 8 o'clock.
MR. LOWE: From 6 to 8 I was busy working out this slip table as I told you before and doing various odds and ends and working a dead­reckoning position for 8 o'clock p.m. to hand in to the captain, or the commander of the ship.
SENATOR SMITH: What would that indicate?
MR. LOWE: That was to indicate the position of the ship at that time, 8 o'clock.
SENATOR SMITH: Do you know what the position of the ship was at 8 o'clock?
MR. LOWE: No, sir; I do not. I do not remember.
SENATOR SMITH: Did you make a report to the captain?
MR. LOWE: I handed him the slip report.
SENATOR SMITH: Did you hand it to him personally?
MR. LOWE: On his chart­room table.
SENATOR SMITH: Did you call his personal attention to it?
MR. LOWE: No; we never do. We simply put the slip on the table; put a paper weight or something on it, and he comes in and sees it. It is nothing of any great importance.
SENATOR SMITH: What did you do it for?
MR. LOWE: It has always been done, so that the position of the ship might be filled in the night order book.
SENATOR SMITH: Does not that constitute a part of the history of that voyage and become a part of the log?
MR. LOWE: I am not saying it was not important for this one voyage. I am saying that in the general run of things it is not of any importance.
SENATOR SMITH: That is, if there is no accident?
MR. LOWE: Yes; because there are thousands of things done previously­­
SENATOR SMITH: (interposing). But in the event of an accident?
MR. LOWE: Oh, yes; it would play an important part then.
SENATOR SMITH: You are not able to give the position of this ship at 8 o'clock Sunday evening?
MR. LOWE: No, sir; I do not remember.
SENATOR SMITH: You then went below, after you delivered that?
MR. LOWE: I went to bed at 8 o'clock.
SENATOR SMITH: Mr. Lowe, you understand, of course, that if you could give the exact position of that ship at 8 o'clock, with the figures that you have just given of its exact position at the time of the collision, the speed of the ship could be easily ascertained, could it not between these two points?
MR. LOWE: Quite.
SENATOR SMITH: You see what I want it for. I want you to think hard and see if you can give that ship's position at 8 o'clock. How did you get the position of the ship? You say it was by dead reckoning. How did you get it?
MR. LOWE: I got it by chronometer.
SENATOR SMITH: Did you first ascertain the speed of the ship?
MR. LOWE: We have a fair idea of what she is doing.
SENATOR SMITH: No; before you could obtain this position, did you first have to ascertain the speed of the ship?
MR. LOWE: You are speaking of the 8 o'clock position, sir?
SENATOR SMITH: Yes.
MR. LOWE: Her speed from noon until we turned the corner was just a fraction under 21 knots.
SENATOR SMITH: You say you took your watch at 6 o'clock Sunday night?
MR. LOWE: No.
SENATOR SMITH: Do not misunderstand me. You went on duty from 6 o'clock to 8 o'clock that night?
MR. LOWE: Oh, yes; that is quite right, sir.
SENATOR SMITH: When were you on duty before that, on Sunday?
MR. LOWE: From noon until 4 p.m.
SENATOR SMITH: And off for two hours?
MR. LOWE: Off for two hours, yes; and then on again.
SENATOR SMITH: You have fixed the position, or did fix the position, of that ship at 8 o'clock p.m.
MR. LOWE: At 8 o'clock p.m.; yes, sir.
SENATOR SMITH: And you did report to the captain of the ship?
MR. LOWE: Yes, sir.
SENATOR SMITH: What speed did you use in getting the 8 p.m. position?
MR. LOWE: I used the speed for the position at 8 o'clock, and got it by dividing the distance from noon to the corner by the time that had elapsed from noon until the time we were at the corner.
SENATOR SMITH: Were you able to fix the position accurately by taking the speed that was made by that ship at noon?
MR. LOWE: Within a mile or two.
SENATOR SMITH: Why did you not take the revolutions at 8 p.m.?
MR. LOWE: Why should we take the revolutions?
SENATOR SMITH: In order to be accurate.
MR. LOWE: Do you mean to say you would be more accurate than I am?
SENATOR SMITH: You are the man that is making the statement. I want to know whether you fixed the position of that ship at 8 o'clock Sunday night upon the speed of the ship at noon on Sunday or upon the speed of the ship at the time you gave her position.
MR. LOWE: You may be out just as much or more by the revolutions as I am by the hourthat is, by dead reckoning, the way I ascertained the position of the ship at 8 p.m.
SENATOR SMITH: In order to ascertain the ship's position accurately at 8 p.m. you must know her speed at 8 p.m., must you not?
MR. LOWE: Her speed at 8 p.m.?
SENATOR SMITH: Yes.
MR. LOWE: If you take the average speed from 12 to 6 ­ that is giving her a run of six hours ­ she will not jump up in two hours, from 12 to 6 o'clock, from that average speed. You have six hours there to take a mean on.
SENATOR SMITH: Suppose the captain of your ship between the hours of 4 and 6 o'clock on Sunday, when you were off duty, had, because of information which had come to him from the steamship Californian that he was in the vicinity of icebergs, ordered the ship to slow down, then would your point of figuring be accurate?
MR. LOWE: He ordered the ship to slow down, you say?
SENATOR SMITH: No. I am not going to have you get confused. I will have the reporter read the question as follows:
Suppose the captain of your ship between the hours of 4 and 6 o'clock on Sunday, when you were off duty had, because of information which had come to him from the steamship Californian that he was in the vicinity of icebergs, ordered the ship to slow down, then would your point of figuring be accurate?
MR. LOWE: The junior officer that I relieved would have passed on the word to me before I relieved him, before I relieved the ship.
SENATOR SMITH: But you had means, had you not, of ascertaining definitely how fast the ship was going?
MR. LOWE: In what way, sir? We have the log­­
SENATOR SMITH: (interposing). Between 6 and 8 o'clock.
MR. LOWE: We have the log.
SENATOR SMITH: I am not finding fault with you. Perhaps you were entirely right about it, when you took the average speed of this ship that day or the maximum speed; but inasmuch as you said she never had attained her maximum speed­­
MR. LOWE: (interrupting). No, sir; she never had.
SENATOR SMITH: And inasmuch as you did not take the revolutions, I wondered whether you were strictly accurate when you defined the ship's position at 8 o'clock.
MR. LOWE: As I told you, sir, we were working at our slip table, and that is a table based upon so many revolutions of engines and so much per cent slip, and you work that out, and that gives you so many miles per hour. This table extended from the rate of 30 revolutions a minute to the rate of 85 and from a percentage of 10 to 40 percent slip; that is, minus. We were working it all out, and of course it was not finished.
SENATOR SMITH: Let us see if we understand one another. The position of the ship at 8 o'clock could be ascertained by astronomical observations and the speed the ship was going. Is that right?
MR. LOWE: No, sir; you do not really need that. You only need that for dead­reckoning position.
SENATOR SMITH: That is what you said you gave.
MR. LOWE: Yes; but we are speaking of observations now. Observations and dead reckonings are very different.
SENATOR SMITH: If you had your report here, the report you made to the captain, I would not be so particular about this, because I would accept your report, as the captain probably accepted it if you heard no complaint about it; but I have not got the report. The report is not available. Therefore, if you will tell just how you got itor if you have told it all, I will desist. I will not press it any further.
MR. LOWE: This is the only figuring that is required to get the speed [handing the chairman a paper].
SENATOR SMITH: And you are able to say that the speed at that time was 21 knots?
MR. LOWE: Twenty­one knots or under; it was really 20.95, about. If the speed had been increased or reduced during the interval when I was off duty, I would have been informed of it.
SENATOR SMITH: It would have been very important that you should be informed of it?
MR. LOWE: We are informed of all. Wherever there is an altering of the course, we say, "She is doing so and so, and so and so." "All right." Then you are relieved.
SENATOR SMITH: I want to take you back just a moment to your statement that ordinarily that report would not be very valuable.
MR. LOWE: What report is not; about altering the speed?
SENATOR SMITH: No; about this 8 o'clock report you made.
MR. LOWE: No, sir; under ordinary circumstances it would not be important.
SENATOR SMITH: But to provide accurate information, should accident arise, that is part of the regulations and part of the duty?
MR. LOWE: No. It is the White Star routine. The White Star Co. have regulations, just the same, in fact, as the Navy, and we all know exactly what to do, how to do it, when to do it, and where to do it. Everybody knows his business, and they do it. There is no hitch in anything.
SENATOR SMITH: Did you ever see the captain again after that night at 8 o'clock?
MR. LOWE: The last time I saw the captain was just after I got out of bed.
SENATOR SMITH: What time?
MR. LOWE: I do not know, sir, what time, but as near as I could judge it would be just before 12.
SENATOR SMITH: After the accident?
MR. LOWE: It must have been after the accident, because the impact did not waken me.
SENATOR SMITH: What time did you retire?
MR. LOWE: I went to bed at about anywhere between a quarter past 8 and half past 8.
SENATOR SMITH: Are you a temperate man?
MR. LOWE: I am, sir. I never touched it in my life. I am an abstainer.
SENATOR SMITH: I am very glad to hear you say that.
MR. LOWE: I say it, sir, without fear of contradiction.
SENATOR SMITH: I am not contradicting you, and I congratulate you upon it; but so many stories have been circulated; one has just been passed up to me now, from a reputable man, who says it was reported that you were drinking that night.
MR. LOWE: Me, sir?
SENATOR SMITH: That is the reason I asked the question.
