124 FOUNDERS OF OCEANOGRAPHY 



occasions weighing up to 100 or even, exceptionally, close on 

 200 lb., and may be of the value of anything up to £1,000 

 sterling. 



It seems probable that the huge cuttle-fish, upon which the 

 sperm-whale feeds, are inhabitants neither of the surface 

 nor of the bottom, but of the deep intermediate waters, the 

 region of the sea which is least known. They apparently 

 never come to the surface, nor are they caught in our trawls. 

 They are powerful swimmers and very muscular, and up to 

 the present, as Mr. Buchanan says,^ " the only means of 

 capturing these interesting and gigantic animals is to engage 

 a bigger giant to undertake the task, and to kill him in his 

 turn when he has performed the service." 



It seems probable that the whale usually brings its 

 captured prey to the surface in order to devour it, and the 

 combat of the " thresher " and the whale, or the supposed 

 sea-serpent and the whale, which occurs in so many sailors' 

 stories, seems to be explainable as the violent and desperate 

 resistance of the giant cuttle-fish to being swallowed when 

 brought to the surface by the cachalot. Whales have been 

 found with wounds, scratches, and impressions on their skin, 

 which are clearly due to the claws and suckers of the cuttle- 

 fish, and there is one specimen described from the Monaco 

 Museum which has an impress of gigantic suckers round the 

 lips of the whale —as if the prey had resisted to the last 

 being swallowed by its captor. 



As an example of a totally different kind of oceanographic 

 research conducted by the Prince, we may take the cruise of 

 the summer of 1902, when, just outside the mouth of the 

 Mediterranean, at a depth of 800 fathoms, he found the 

 bottom water to have the remarkably high temperature of 

 9-4° C. Now, the temperature of the bottom water of that 

 region of the Atlantic at a depth of 800 fathoms ought not to 

 be higher than 4-5° C. "It was evident, therefore," says 

 ]VIr. Buchanan in discussing this result, '' that we had here 

 ^ Accounts Bendered, p. 274. 



