Posted by Bob Read on June 28, 1998 at 09:13:56 in pm3-0-025.apci.net:
Does anyone know for sure what the dark rectangular
structures were on the port & starboard sides of the
forward skylight cover over the first class staircase?
They are located near deck level. They are only just visible in a few Titanic Photos (the Isle of Wight photo on p.15 of Ballards "Discovery of the Titanic".
Marschall's cutaway painting in "Titanic: An Illustrated History" shows only the front part on the starboard side. His representation makes them look like the screens that covered the tops of the windows
of the first class lounge and first class smoke room where they projected through the boat deck. He has cut away the starboard side of the aft skylight cover so we can't see if they were there or if there were three
round windows as the model has it.
The Olympic had round windows on the sides and front of the forward skylight cover but these are not visible on the Titanic.
My speculation is that these may not have been screens over windows at the base of the skylight cover. In an old issue of the Titanic Commutator they did a series on the "Big Four" of the White Star Line: the Cedric,Celtic,Baltic and Suevic. They preceeded the Olympic class by a few years. One photo shows a skylight cover with this same kind of dark rectangular boxlike structure on the side. The structure clearly had louvers on the side. My theory is that possibly the round windows which were present on the sides of the Olympics cover were not so much for light to enter as they might be opened to provide air circulation and stop the "greenhouse effect" where condensation could form inside the cover and on the glass dome underneath.
They may not have been efficient and an actual air circulation unit may have had to have been installed.
The aft skylight cover exists in one of the photographic "black holes". I saw an aerial view of the Olympic on her maiden voyage and it shows the three
round windows on each side. Since they dispensed with the round windows on the forward cover on the Titanic, did they do the same with the aft cover?
I have puzzled over this matter for some time. Does anybody have anything more than speculation?
Regards,
Bob Read