TIGERS OF THE DEEP 



advancing science has shown many of the accounts to be 

 old wives' tales, and numbers of the "facts" collected 

 about the shark mere superstitious fancies. 



In some Eastern countries the natives used the fins as 

 food and considered them delicacies — but the flesh was 

 regarded as worthless and only fit for the very poorest 

 classes. Certain peoples of the South Seas, it is true, 

 covered the handles of their weapons and oars with 

 sharkskin — but no attempts were made to cure the 

 material properly, so that it was thought to be unfit for 

 much else, being dry and hard. 



The scientist Dr. Ehrenreich was one of the first to 

 change all this. His researches in the early part of the 

 present century have contributed towards turning what 

 was regarded as a worthless scavenger of the seas into a 

 benefactor of mankind, for he showed that every particle 

 of a shark's carcass has some commercial value. Today, 

 sharkskin leather is barely distinguishable from any 

 other. It is in fact far stronger than cowhide and much 

 more durable. Strands of sharkskin are longer than those 

 of cowhide, and the leather from some species can be 

 split into as many as fourteen layers without depreciation 

 of its qualities. The soft skins of unborn sharks make an 

 excellent substitute for doeskin. 



The shagreen often seen on cigarette boxes and other 

 articles has been specially treated. The ''teeth" have to 

 be removed — those tiny scales already mentioned, which 

 are so tough that no needle can penetrate them — before 

 the leather can be used for articles which have to be 

 handled. Shark meat, once regarded as almost uneatable, 

 is now consumed in thousands of tons by civilized peoples, 

 few of whom realize what they are eating. In London 

 alone, before the last war, nearly two thousand tons of 

 shark meat was eaten annually. Some of it was of the 

 dried variety from sharks, but most of it came from the 

 dogfish. It is probably being consumed in even greater 

 quantities today in most cities and towns of this country, 



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