The Mighty Deep 



giants of the race would be in all cases too much 

 for these puny foes. 



Even a Bengal tiger, however, may be 

 mastered by an elephant ; and the mightiest 

 of squids has to succumb before the yet mightier 

 sperm whale. 



" The monsters vast of ages past " received 

 attention in a well-known poem. But the mon- 

 sters vast of ocean-depths in the present may 

 surely compete with them. Happily for man- 

 kind, these awful creatures do not frequently 

 come out of their " ocean-caves " to be inter- 

 viewed. 



Now and again one is caught, or is flung 

 ashore by a storm, or its dead remains are found 

 and examined. 



One huge creature, captured near Labrador, 

 was reported to have a body thirteen feet long, 

 with arms reaching to a distance from the head 

 of thirty-seven feet. Another, left by the re- 

 treating tide on a Newfoundland beach, had a 

 body twenty feet long, and arms about the same 

 in length as those last mentioned. 



But no more striking description has been given 

 than that of Mr. Frank Bullen, in his fascinating 

 volume,* when he tells of the tremendous midnight 



* Cruise of the Cachalot. 

 216 



