i8z The Under-Water World 



sawfish, and the vast size of some of 

 these fish may be explained by the fact 

 that the race came into being and held 

 its own at the tail end of the fearsome 

 age of reptiles. Sharks and rays were in 

 existence when the Dinosaurs haunted 

 the creeks, when the giant Mosasaurs (so 

 called from the Latin name of the river 

 Meuse, on the banks of which its remains 

 were first discovered) ranged the ocean, 

 and the Pterodactyls or " flying dragons" 

 were a menace to all surface swimming 

 creatures. 



Only very big fish could have coped 

 with such odds. The largest extinct 

 shark (Carcharodon) had a gape of mouth 

 in which a full grown man could recline 

 at ease, whilst the biggest living shark 

 can boast of a mouth only a very little 

 smaller. 



The largest known shark, the whale- 

 shark, measures nearly 100 feet in length, 

 has a " waist line " of forty feet, and 



