68 THE ANGLER AND HUNTSMAN 



tip; the pectoral fin is five feet long, and three feet wide, 

 while the dorsal fin is three feet long and two feet nine 

 inches wide. With this huge muscular tail as motive pow- 

 er the creature was able to hurl itself through the waters 

 for hours with almost the speed of an express train, and, 

 dragging Capt. Thompson's boat behind it, not even the 

 swiftest motor boat could have kept pace with it. 



In appearance, the huge monster resembles a great 

 fish, but scientists are dumbfounded as to its place among 

 the species. It is beyond doubt a true fish, possessing all 

 the well-known characteristics of a fish, including the gills, 

 which are four feet long and by means of which it breathes. 

 Yet it does not resemble any certain species recorded by 

 science. 



Here are some of the facts about the Deep Sea Monster: 

 Measures 45 feet in length; weighs 15 tons, or nearly 

 thirty thousand pounds; its liver alone weighed 1,700 

 pounds, or more than ten full-grown men put together; it 

 is twenty-three feet around the body, and its tail measures 

 ten feet from tip to tip ; it has swallowed an octopus weigh- 

 ing 400 pounds, a blackfish weighing fifteen hundred 

 pounds, and five hundred pounds of coral was also found 

 in its stomach; it could have swallowed twenty Jonahs 

 without suffering the slightest pangs of indigestion; it 

 smashed a boat into thousands of pieces and crushed the 

 rudder and propeller of a thirty-one-ton yacht with a single 

 swish of its mighty tail; five harpoon thrusts and one hun- 

 dred and fifty large caliber rifle bullets only served to in- 

 crease its fury, and it took five days to finally kill it; the 

 battle lasted thirty-nine hours two days and a night in 

 open water, with the monster dragging a small boat at ex- 

 press train speed for hundreds of miles; scientific authori- 

 ties believe that the creature was an inhabitant of depths 

 more than fifteen hundred feet below the surface, and that 

 it was blown up by some subterranean or volcanic upheaval 

 which injured its diving apparatus so that it was unable to 



