LIFE IN THE GREAT DEPTHS 119 



washed upon our Florida coast and, as in the 

 case of the wonderful giant squids, photo- 

 graphs of this new "sea monster" and pieces 

 of its substance were sent to Prof. Verrill. At 

 first it seemed as if this would prove another 

 unknown and gigantic cuttlefish, but upon 

 examination it turned out to be a portion of 

 some very different creature. Although some 

 twenty feet in length and forty feet in circum- 

 ference and weighing many tons, yet this great 

 mass of tough, fibrous flesh was a mere frag- 

 ment of some titanic marine monster and in 

 its structure and shape so different from any 

 known form of animal that no scientist could 

 even guess at its origin and it has gone down 

 to posterity as one of the mysteries of the sea. 

 At any time, however, the world may be 

 surprised and naturalists may be made happy 

 by the discovery of the real sea-serpent, for 

 the ways of the sea are strange and its mys- 

 teries are past our understanding. A subter- 

 ranean convulsion, such as an earthquake or 

 a submarine volcanic eruption, may injure or 

 kill vast numbers of the inhabitants of the 

 ocean's depths and floating upwards these 



