Now we have another example of this curious obsession with some relic of the past. In five years” time, it will be exactly a century since the most famous of all maritime disasters, the sinking of the luxury liner Titanic on her maiden voyage in 1912. The tragedy inspired dozens of books and at least five films—as well as Thomas Hardy’s embarrassingly feeble poem, “The Convergence of the Twain.”

For seventy-three years the great ship lay on the bed of the Atlantic, a monument to the 1,500 souls who were lost with her; she seemed forever beyond human ken. But in 1985, thanks to revolutionary advances in submarine technology, she was discovered, and hundreds of her pitiful relics brought back to the light of day. Even at the time, many considered this a kind of desecration.

Now, according to rumour, much more ambitious plans are afoot; various consortia—as yet unidentified—have been formed to raise the ship, despite her badly damaged condition.

Frankly, such a project seems completely absurd, and we trust that none of our readers will be induced to invest in it. Even if all the engineering problems can be overcome, just what would the salvors do with forty or fifty thousand tons of scrap iron? Marine archaeologists have known for years that metal objects—except, of course, gold—disintegrate rapidly when brought into contact with air after long submergence.

Protecting the Titanic might be even more expensive than salvaging her. It is not as if—like the Vasa or the Mary Rose—she is a “time capsule” giving us a glimpse of a lost era. The twentieth century is adequately—sometimes all too adequately—documented. We can learn nothing that we do not already know from the debris four kilometres down off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland.

There is no need to revisit her to be reminded of the most important lesson the Titanic can teach—the dangers of over-confidence, of technological hubris. Chernobyl, Challenger, Lagrange 3 and Experimental Fusor One have shown us where that can lead.