CHAPTER XV. 



THE SHARK. 



" A blue shark is hanging within the blue ocean. "--SHELLEY. 



JJHIRTY-THREE feet in length (we are refer- 

 ring, of course, to the largest members of the 

 terrible Squalidse) ; colossal muscular force ; 

 such a power of rapid motion that it is calcu- 

 lated the creature, if it rested neither day nor night, could 

 complete the circumnavigation of the globe in thirty 

 weeks ; so entire an insensibility to fatigue that it has 

 been known to follow a ship from Europe to America, 

 making a thousand circuits of the vessel it escorted ; jaws 

 of such dimensions, that, when wide open, their circum- 

 ference is nearly equal to one-third of the animal's whole 

 length j triangular teeth, sharp and trenchant, and in- 

 creasing in number with the animal's age \ a skin imper- 

 vious to musket-balls ; a voracity which seems insatiable, 

 and an audacity which nothing intimidates ; the ferocity 

 of the tiger in union with the strength of the cachalot ; 

 such is the SHARK, the terror of the marine world, the 

 most formidable monster of ocean ! 



