240 SPOKT IN NOKTH AMERICA. 



gards its extraordinary size and its monstrous pro- 

 portions. It is true that tradition not unfrequently 

 changes truth into falsehood, and falsehood again 

 into a worse falsehood still; but the lovers of the 

 marvellous need not be ashamed to admit the evi- 

 dence of a tradition which has survived the attacks 

 of the incredulous from the very earliest times to our 

 own days. According to this tradition, when the 

 Kraken appears on the surface of the water it looks 

 more like an island or a reef of rocks than a fish, 

 and if, in swimming beneath the surface, it happens 

 to touch a ship, the crew will experience a series of 

 shocks, precisely as if some submarine volcanic action 

 were shaking them. Tradition also alleges that the 

 Kraken never dies, but that Nature has refused it 

 the means of propagating its species. Indeed, were 

 it otherwise, it would be difficult for even the ocean 

 to provide for a race of creatures so monstrous. 

 These traditions, it should be remembered, are 

 founded after all upon considerations which are only 

 supposititious ; but Nature has many such secrets 

 which are concealed from human knowledge. More- 

 over, it is not only upon the evidence of ignorant 

 and superstitious sailors and fishermen, that these 

 traditions rest ; more than one naturalist worthy 

 of respect has confirmed and corroborated, certainly 

 with some modifications, these traditions and le- 

 gends. 



Erom the infinite number of tales relative to this 



