CHAPTER XII. 



SHARKS— THE PIRATES OF THE OCEAN. 



IMAGINE a Shark seventy feet long, with a 

 tooth four inches and a half in the enamel, or 

 the part visible above the socket, jaws with 

 the bow about thirteen feet, and a mouth 

 capable of stretching more than twenty-six 

 feet around! This was one of the species of 

 fossil sharks, an antediluvian animal, which has been dis- 

 covered in the limestone rocks, the teeth and the vertebrae 

 (small bones or joints composing the spine or back-bone) en- 

 abling the geologist to determine the species to which the 

 animal belongs. 



A tooth, the size of that mentioned, was shown to the 

 distinguished I^rench naturalist, Lac^pMe, and, in order to 

 discover the proportions of the animal to which it belonged, 

 he measured first the teeth, and next the stuffed specimens 

 of all the sharks preserved in the Museum of Natural His- 

 tory in Paris, and he found in every instance that the rela- 

 tive proportions they bore to each other was one to two 

 hundred, and he was thus enabled to ascertain the pro- 

 digious size and capacity of this formidable antediluvian 

 animal. 



Although the sharks of our own time are not of the same 

 monstrous proportions, they are, from their immense strength 

 and voracity, the objects of dread to those who behold them 

 in their native element. 



" The type of horror and remorseless hate, 

 Of villainy the worst." 



