After 73 Years,

By Natalie Angier.

They are the artifacts of extravagance, as flawlessly preserved as those in the tomb of King Tutankhamen. Five cases of wine with corks seemingly intact. Delicate china plates, wash basins and chamber pots, pristine and unchipped. Plump and elegant luggage that could have been packed yesterday. Seventy-three years after the "unsinkable" Titanic plowed into an iceberg and slowly slipped beneath the waves, the luxury liner has at last been found sitting nearly upright on the frigid Atlantic floor, 500 miles south of Newfoundland and more than 13,000 ft. below sea level. At that depth, the great ship and its trove of Edwardian-era relics have been shielded from the destructive effects of sunlight, heat, algae and parasites. "If you had your wildest dream of how you were going to find that ship, that is exactly how we found it," said an ebullient Robert Ballard, expedition leader and a marine geologist with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. "It is a museum piece."

In a sense, it was a dream fulfilled for all seafaring scientists. To locate one of the most technologically advanced vessels of its day, the researchers employed the most advanced technology of today. A team of 13 Woods Hole investigators sailing on the U.S. Navy research vessel Knorr joined forces with a contingent of French scientists aboard the Suroit, operated by the Paris-based Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea (IFREMER). The two ships bristled with several million dollars' worth of sophisticated equipment. It included a high-resolution sonar device that can trace precisely the contours of the ocean floor, and a compact submersible vessel towed like a sled on a cable, which relayed photographs and videotape confirming the Titanic find. For some of the investigators, the biggest thrill was that their experimental equipment worked. "This allows us to open up deep-sea exploration on a much, much larger scale than before," says Woods Hole Director John Steele. "We couldn't ask for more."

The discovery was also a triumph for romance. The sinking of the Titanic on its maiden voyage, and the death of more than 1,500 of the 2,200 passengers on board, had signaled the end of the Edwardian era in all its cocky opulence. Last week's unexpected reappearance of the great ship was a welcome touch of vintage nostalgia, like the sight of a top hat or a long white glove. For his part, Ballard was willing to share with the world only a portion of his great discovery. Fearing an onslaught of treasure-seeking vandals, he refused to divulge the exact position of the Titanic. "If I give you the depths," he said good-humoredly, "a good oceanographer will know how to get at it."

The U.S.-French mission was not the first to seek the ill-fated ocean liner. From the moment the ship plunged to the bottom, people have dreamed of salvaging the vast riches said to be on board, but the great depths and stormy waters of the North Atlantic were thought to be insurmountable obstacles. Even the advent of deep-sea sonar equipment did not initially hold forth much promise for narrowing the search. Although the Titanic is believed to have ^ gone under at 41 degrees 46 min. north and 50 degrees 14 min. west, nobody has ever been sure of the exact coordinates; an error of only minutes in either direction translates into an uncertainty of many square miles. Worse, the ocean floor has bumps, rolls and other geological features that could produce a reflected sound-wave pattern confusingly similar to that of a sunken ship.

Among the undaunted was Jack Grimm, a restless Texas oil millionaire who previously had searched for quarries less tangible than the Titanic: Noah's Ark, Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster. Between 1980 and 1983 he lavished $2 million on three elaborate Titanic expeditions, masterminded by Columbia University Marine Geologist William Ryan and Fred Spiess of the Scripps Oceanographic Institute in La Jolla, Calif. Using prototypes of the Knorr- Suroit sonar technology and submersible cameras, Ryan and Spiess mapped large swatches of ocean floor and took intriguing images of something that Grimm, at least, is convinced resembled the propeller of a ship. Computer enhancement of the pictures, he insists, seemed to show the faintest outlines of bolts. "Only a few ships had propellers so large that they had to bolt the blades on," says Grimm, "so it confirmed my conviction that we had found the Titanic." But when the crew members returned to the site in 1983, violent storms prevented them from verifying the find.

Ballard's obsession with the lost ship had begun decades ago, as a kind of intellectual hobby. "If something's been written about the Titanic, he's read it," says fellow Marine Scientist William Marquet. "He knows her, inside and out." That curiosity received a boost three years ago when the Navy decided to finance the development of a sophisticated submersible photographic vessel, christened Argo (see box). It was Ballard who suggested that the Argo's maiden task be to seek the Titanic. Knorr set sail three months ago, the compact submersible on board; after performing routine explorations off the coast of San Juan and the Azores, the crew arrived at the Titanic target zone in the rough seas of the North Atlantic in late August.

There it rendezvoused with the Suroit, which had been sounding the water since June 28. The French ship had picked up an important echo that was probably associated with the Titanic. Armed with that information, Knorr scientists decided to deploy Argo at that spot. In less than a week, the researchers received the first dim video images of the Titanic that they had been praying for. "We went smack-dab over a gorgeous boiler," crowed Ballard to the Canadian television network CTV. "It was just bang, there we were on top of it."

Elation soon gave way to a more somber spirit. Realizing that they were looking at the scene of one of history's great tragedies, Ballard organized an impromptu memorial service for the dead. Said he: "To finally put those souls to rest was a very nice feeling."

Over the next several days, the Knorr crew repeatedly lowered the Argo, only to raise it again when the waves got rough. Another unmanned vessel, named Angus, was dispatched to the depths to take high-quality still photographs that would complement Argo's videotapes. Acoustic transponders delineated the ship's massive profile. Each image proved more remarkable than the previous one. A small flagpole stretched forlornly from the tip of the bow. Lifeboat bays yawned, empty. Much of the Titanic was in "pristine" condition, but portions of the hull seemed to show the lethal gash inflicted by the iceberg, and the stern of the ship had been wrested from the main body. No human remains were seen. In one alarming incident, Argo scraped against a Titanic smokestack, but the sub emerged intact. At week's end the crew packed up and headed for shore.

Since the first sighting, Ballard has insisted repeatedly that the Titanic should be left undisturbed. "The ship is in beautiful condition where it is," he says. "I am opposed to the desecration of this memorial to 1,500 souls." The issue will not die so easily. Already, speculation is mounting over who owns the ship and about the quantity of treasure, including diamonds and other jewels, that may be on board. Commercial Union, a British insurance company descended from the original underwriters of the ship, may have some legal right to the booty, assuming that it can document having paid out a given amount in claims. Grimm maintains that because his expeditions had narrowed the search and his data was given to Ballard, he is at least partly responsible for the discovery. He plans to launch a salvage operation next summer. "I don't see any objection to diving down there," he says. "I'd sure love to drink a bottle of that wine."

Nearly everybody, including Grimm, agrees that raising the entire Titanic would be both technologically and financially unthinkable. Yet at least one salvage expert may be ready to give it a try. He is Britain's John Pierce, who designed an array of inflatable canvas bags to lift the Rainbow Warrior from the bottom of Auckland harbor in New Zealand after it had been sunk by a terrorist bomb. According to accounts in the British press, Pierce has suggested a similar approach for the Titanic. But raising the 418-ton Greenpeace ship from a shallow harbor is one thing, rescuing the 46,328-ton Titanic from 2 1/2 miles of ocean quite another. Says Keith Jessop, the Yorkshire diver who in 1981 salvaged $80 million in gold bullion from the World War II battleship H.M.S. Edinburgh: "You can't even speak of them in the same breath."

Most Titanicphiles think there may not be enough booty aboard to justify the expense of even a modest salvage operation. Walter Lord, author of A Night to Remember, pored over the old damage claims and found that the Titanic's cargo was insured for an unimpressive $420,000. According to the ship's manifest, among the significant items on board were some 500 cases of shelled walnuts, 860 rolls of linoleum and eight cases of orchids.

Woods Hole and the French IFREMER, adopting a loftier stance, are making no claims on the Titanic remains. Ballard wants only to return to the site next year and descend to the bottom in Woods Hole's manned submarine Alvin so that he can see the great ship with his own eyes. First, however, he must catch his breath. "This has been so emotional," he says, "that my scientific side has not clicked in yet." There is no real hurry: the Titanic, after all, has waited 73 years.

With reporting by Joelle Attinger/Woods Hole and William Dowell/Paris