HIGHER LIFE IN WATERS. 89 



was the one encountered near the Madeira Islands by the 

 French steamer Alecton. This monster was estimated to 

 be fifty feet long without reckoning its eight formidable 

 arms, covered with suckers, and about twenty feet in cir- 

 cumference at its largest part, the head terminating in 

 many arms of enormous size, the other extremity in two 

 fleshy lobes or fins of great size, the weight of the whole 

 being estimated at four thousand pounds ; the flesh was 

 soft, glutinous, and of reddish-brick color. 



8. The commandant, wishing in the interests of science 

 to secure the monster, actually engaged it in battle. Nu- 

 merous shots were aimed at it, but the balls traversed its 

 flaccid and glutinous mass without causing it any vital in- 

 jury. But after one of these attacks the waves were ob- 

 served to be covered with foam and blood, and, singular 

 thing, a strong odor of musk was inhaled by the spectators. 

 This musk odor is peculiar to many of the cephalopods. 



9. The musket-shots not having produced the desired 

 results, harpoons were employed, but they took no hold on 

 the soft, impalpable flesh of the marine monster. When it 

 escaped from the harpoon, it dived under the ship, and 

 came up again at the other side. They succeeded at last 

 in getting the harpoon to hold, and in passing a bowling 

 hitch round the posterior part of the animal. But when 

 they attempted to hoist it out of the water the rope pene- 

 trated deeply into the flesh, and separated it into two parts, 

 the head with the arms and tentacles dropping into the sea 

 and making off, while the fins and posterior parts were 

 brought on board ; they weighed about forty pounds. 



10. Bev. Mr. Harvey, of Newfoundland, published an 

 account a few years ago of the adventure of two fishermen 

 in Conception Bay. Their boat passed near what appeared 

 to be a floating bale of goods, which was presumed to be 

 flotsam from some wreck. One of them struck the mass 

 with the boat-hook, when it instantly opened, like a gigan- 



