346 Shark and Company 



back. Just before they reached the boat, a shark grabbed Jack's right 

 hip. He beat the shark off and turned for shore, but it attacked him 

 again, slashing his arm as he tried to strike it. During the battle, George 

 slipped from his father's back. When George disappeared, so did the 

 shark, and the boy was never seen again. 



East Hills lies on George's River in New South Wales. It is a town 

 20 miles from the mouth of the river. One day, 15-year-old Wallace Mc- 

 Cutcheon dived into the river to retrieve a tennis ball. As he was swim- 

 ming back to shore, a shark struck at him. The shark did not follow 

 through on its cursory thrust, and the boy reached shore. He and several 

 other astounded persons along the river saw several other large sharks 

 prowling about. 



Not quite a year afterward, 19-year-old Richard Soden was racing 

 several other boys across George's River, about 2 miles upriver from East 

 Hills. Soden, a strong swimmer, was in the lead when he suddenly dis- 

 appeared. The other swimmers saw a large dorsal fin. Soden bobbed 

 to the surface. His companions towed him to shore. His left leg was 

 horribly mutilated, and he was dead before he reached the river bank. 



Soden was killed about 4:30 in the afternoon. At 8:15 that same 

 night, 3 miles upriver from the fatal attack— thus some 25 miles from 

 the sea— 13 -year-old Beryl Morrin and several other children were play- 

 ing in 4 feet of water no more than 10 yards from the river bank. Beryl 

 screamed and thrust her arms up out of the water. Both of her hands were 

 gone. Swift application of tourniquets saved her life, but the lightning- 

 like attack had so mutilated her arms that both had to be amputated, 

 one below and the other above the elbow. 



The vicious, river-raiding sharks of Australia, India, and the Middle 

 East seem to be confined to tropical and subtropical zones. But, until 

 more is learned about what lures sharks into fresh water, every tropical 

 and temperate river mouth would seem to be a potential gateway for a 

 Selachian visitor. In the summer of 1960, for example, so many sharks 

 were reported in the Delaware River (U.S.A.) that state police pa- 

 trolled river beaches, warning startled swimmers and water-skiers to get 

 out of the water because of sharks. At least one shark, a 7-foot, 225- 

 pounder of undetermined species, was caught off New Castle, Delaware 

 —some 30 miles from the mouth of the river. 



A Great White shark was reported near the mouth of the St. Croix 

 River, the boundary between Maine and the Canadian province of New 

 Brunswick, in 1953. The shark had not penetrated the St. Croix very 

 far, but the report of a shark in a far northern river raises an interesting 

 possibility. For, now that ocean ships can sail 2,347 miles into the interior 

 of the United States and Canada— from the Gulf of St. Lawrence and 

 up the St. Lawrence Seaway as far as Duluth, Minnesota— it is not im- 



