A Titanic immersion: Museum-goers will feel the cold, hear the engines whir

Oct 09, 2008 (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- PRXI | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- Tom Zaller peered out the tiny porthole into the looming darkness two miles below the ocean's surface and saw an object in the massive debris field filled with items both heartbreaking and utilitarian from the Titanic.

There was no mistaking what he saw: a toilet. Sitting upright, still with its handle and part of the seat.

It had made the journey to the bottom of the sea as the unsinkable ocean liner plunged to its death 96 years ago and sat undisturbed until Zaller came along in a submersible.

"I said 'Hold on a second. We've got to get that,' " Zaller said Wednesday.

Though it took 45 minutes to snare the Titanic toilet with a mechanical arm on the submersible, the commode is not part of the traveling exhibit of artifacts from the doomed ship that opens Friday at the Milwaukee Public Museum. However, in the Milwaukee exhibit there are 270 other items brought up from the shipwreck site by Premier Exhibitions, the parent company of RMS Titanic Inc., including memorabilia that Zaller, vice president of exhibitions for the firm, discovered on his visit to the shipwreck in 2000.

Only about 150 people have been to the Titanic wreck site -- far fewer than those who have been to space. And even though it was eight years ago, Zaller said it felt like it was yesterday when he wiggled into the tiny Russian submersible with two others, crouched in the 6-foot-by-6-foot space, waited two hours to descend to the seabed and glimpsed the wreck.

Lights in the submersible were turned off to conserve batteries, so it was just the three men and their thoughts as they zoomed downward on the same path the Titanic took on April 15, 1912.

"You know when you go to a theater and they turn the lights off and there's the anticipation before the show starts? Well, think two hours of that," said Zaller as he walked through the Milwaukee Public Museum's Titanic exhibit on Wednesday.

The submersible landed with a jarring thud on the bottom, kicking up a cloud of sediment. As the lights outside the sub were turned on, all Zaller could see was a gray cloud engulfing the tiny craft. Then the submersible moved forward, leaving the cloud behind, and Zaller could see they were in the middle of the large debris field between the half-mile separating the bow and stern sections.

Tons of coal

The first thing he saw, and the first thing the discoverers of the Titanic wreck glimpsed in 1985, was coal. Almost 6,000 tons were aboard when the ship left England, and large chunks are scattered throughout the wreck site. Because of a coal strike in England at the time the Titanic sailed, some passengers switched berths from other ships delayed by the strike and boarded the Titanic.

"Right after the coal, I saw a shoe. I'm pretty sure it came from a piece of luggage. It was a man's shoe with just the rubber bottom," said Zaller, 36, a Cleveland native. "So then it became emotional because when you start to see the objects you start to think of the people on the Titanic."

No human remains have been found. The 5,500 objects salvaged by RMS Titanic Inc. and put on display in eight different permanent and traveling exhibits range from clothing, tableware, still-filled champagne bottles and a large section of the hull -- a smaller hull piece is part of the Milwaukee display -- to jewelry, money and musical instruments.

Perfumes intact

One of Zaller's favorite pieces from the collection is a leather perfume-sample case he found on his dive to the wreck site.

Of the delicate items found such as letters, sheet music and a man's pants, only those inside leather suitcases and bags have survived to tell the stories of their owners. Because leather is toxic to ocean organisms, artifacts inside them have surprisingly withstood the ravages of time and the harsh conditions of the sea.

"Any time we recover a bag we're excited because we don't know what's inside. It's like finding a bag of treasure," Zaller said.

All artifacts are immediately placed in a solution to preserve them. And when the leather case Zaller found was opened "it was this amazing set of odors. I remember smelling lavender."

The leather satchel, which is on display in Milwaukee, held several perfume vials still containing their sweet scent, which 47-year-old English businessman Adolphe Saalfeld was bringing with him to America. Saalfeld was in the first-class smoking room when a steward told him to go on deck. He found his way onto a lifeboat, survived the sinking of the Titanic and died in 1926. The perfume samples he left in his cabin are now in a display case at the Milwaukee Public Museum, where holes in the sides of the plexiglass case allow visitors to breathe in the scents.

Following the 2000 expedition that Zaller took part in, Premier Exhibitions, which has the exclusive salvor rights to the Titanic, visited the site in 2004 to retrieve more artifacts.

Another expedition is in the planning stages for next year.

Zaller, who has worked with Titanic artifacts for 10 years, is hoping the company will be allowed to cut into the hull on its next expedition to retrieve first-class luggage. To do that, Premier Exhibitions must first get permission from a U.S. court. Zaller is also hoping to find the one car believed to be aboard -- a 1912 Renault town car that was also the setting for a love scene with Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet in the movie -- and bring it up to restore and display it.

"What people connect with and what people love is the human stories of the Titanic," Zaller said. "Otherwise they're just objects."

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