The Sun.
London, England, 1823-11-08 00:00:00

THE VAMPIRE OF THE OCEAN.

Front the President of the Ma, York Lyceum of Nature,
History, to the .11feyhter,i, dated New Yoik Septcenber 11
1823.
" On the Oth day of September 1183 returtn..d
from a cruise off Delavrare Bay, the fishing smack Mao.' She
had sailed about.three weeks before from New 'York, for the
express purpote of catching an enormous fish, which had been
reported to frequent the ocean, a few leagues beyond_ Cape
llenlopen. The adventurers in this bold enterprize have been
successful. They have brought, for the enlargement of science
and the gratification of curiosity,ean uncommon inhabitant of
the deep, which has never been seen on the land before.
The creature is one of the huge individuals of the family
of Itoa ; or perhaps may be erected, from his novelty tend pe-
culiarity, into a now genus, between that, the Omni*, and the
Acipeneer. Its strength wits such, that afterahaebody. had
been penetrated by two' strong and well,formed gigs of elle beet
tempered iron, the shank of one of them was broken off, and,
the other singularly bent. The boat, containing the three in.
trepid men, John Patchen, Theophilus Beebe, and William
Porter, was connected, after the deadly. imminent had taken
hold, with the wounded inhabitant of the deep by a strong
warp or line. The celerity with which the fish swam could
only be compared to that of, thd harpooned whale, dragging
the boat after it with such speed, as to cause a wave to rise on
each side of the furrow in which he moved several feet higher
than the boat theft'.
" The weight of the fish after death was such, that three pair
of oxen, one horse, and 21 nientetli, putting together, with the
surge of the Atlantic wave to help, could not convey.it far to
the dry beach. It was estimated from this and, probeble esti.
inate, to equal four tons auti.a half, 'or perhaps five tons.
The size was enormous for the distance from the extre-
niity of one wing or pectoral ; tin to the ether, expanded like the
wing of an eagle, measures in feet ( over the extremity of the
back, and on the right line of the belly, 16 feet the distance
from the snout to the end of the tail, feet length of the
ten, four feet; width of the mouth, 2 feet flinches.
" The operation of combat and killing lasted nine hours. It
was an heroic achievement, and was witnessed by crowds of
citizens, on the 'shores of New Jersey and Delaware, and
by the persons oil board the flotilla of vessels in the bay and
offing.
" During the scuffle, the wings, side flaps, Or vast elated fins
of the monster, lashed the sea with such vehemence; that the
spray rose teethe height of 30 feet, and rained round to the dis-
tance of 50 feet. It was a tremendous encounter. ' .0n shore, all
was awe and expectation.
" 111 r. Patchen„ whose taste and zeal in zoology are well
known, has attended very inticheo the manners of the Vampire
of the Ocean ; to the preservation of the skin and external parts;
to the osseology and skeleton; the internal organizations; and,
in short, to every circumstance that watt practicable during such
a hazardous business, and the, tempestuous weather whicli dis-
tressed them almost' from the, beginning to the end of their
..I merely mention, before, I lay
Voyage.
down my pen, that this
animal is viviparous, and of course connects fishes with main.
miferous animals ; and that the respiratory motion, generative
and sensitive organs, Present an extraordinary- amount of rare
and interesting particulars. IncoMpreheneible its well as won-
derful are thy wotke, 0 Creator i inconeeinmate sagacity Them
had executed them all ;
"' This is but an outline : I intend to finish this sketch ; and
prepare it as welriut I can for the Sobiars formal notice.
While I express full approbation of our friends, ;whom
neither'difficulty nor danger could
cagey I: utter it fur.
titer sentiment, that they .may 'be well pai b. their intended
exhibition.

bIiTCHELI4.;,

PLURALITY OF WORLDS.

With no less truth than eloquence, the Royal
Prophet has asserted, that " the Heavens declare
the glory of the Lord." No feeling Mind, can,

indeed. gaze upon the starry hearens with Out
mingled sentiments of delight and of admiration.
Thousands of stars glitter in the firmament.; and
the eye is enchanted with the glorious sight.
But pleasure is not the only sentiment that so

magnificent a scene awakens in the philosophic
mind. Enlightened by science, it penetrates
through the immensity of space, and discovers in
the host of heaven, not mere glittering specks,
but spheres of which the magnitude is far be-
yond its conception ; suns bestowing 4glit, beat,
and fertility to innumerable planets and worlds !
Though analogy alone leads to this conclusion.
Yet the idea is too pleasing„ too reasonitbte, too
magnificent, to be rejected as improbable. In
the pride of his nothingness, man may imagine
himself, and perhaps' with. truth, the primary 0b...
ject of his sublunary abode; but he is not tke
only end of universal creation. In the incon-
ceivable plan of existence there must be other
living,. other rational beings besides himself..
Organization, fruitfulness, and life are percepti-
ble around us; even a drop of water teems with!
inhabitants; and shall- the vast masses of the
planets he harren and deserted ?
How vast, how sublime, is the idea of a plu-
rality of worlds I it,astounds our reason
it elevates our mind, and 'gives us a better, though
still a very inadequate, notion, of that Being
whose mere fiat produced tie,uniVerse, and whose
inconceivable wisdom watches over thepreserva-

tion of this sturitindOut manifestation of his infi
nite power. ThOttsandVof stars are perceived by
the naked eye.; Millions are discovered' by the
telescope ; millions of millions are placed far
beyond the reach of our best instruments ; and
round each of those stars planitery bodies circu-
late, inhabited by myriads of myriads of rational
beings ! What.is the mind of man to cope with
such infinity I Yet what is it not to be enabled
to.arrive at such sublime conceptions ! The earth
becomes a
.speck in the, universe ; and vain
haughty man a mere atom in the Scale of created
beings.
The idea of a plurality of worlds is at once so
sublime and so rational, that it must have oc-
curred to the philosophic mind, as soon as the
vast distances, and the probable masses, of the
heavenly bodies, were more clearly understood.
One of the first philosophers, however, who pub-
lished it to the world was the celebrated Huy-
gens,. in a book entitled, 46 Cointothoros." In
this pleasing publication the author lies most in.
geniously laboured to demonstrate that.. the idea
of the planet being filled'irith rational inhabi-
tants, perfectly accorded with reason, and with
the notion we should form of the wisdom of
the Creator. The arguments adduced in favdur
of his hypothesis, are at once strong and con-
vincing ; but the author may be blamed for
carrying the resemblance between the plonc-
tarians and ourselves, to. an unwarrantable
length. Little argumentation is required to prove
that the planets are, in all probability, inhabited,
and this first, position being granted, there can be
no difficulty in allowing that their inhabitants
Must lie rational beings, capable of-reflection and
thought, and able to enjoy their existence, and to
know and adore the wisdom which made theM.
Thus far no one can reasonably controvert the
conclusions of Huygens. But when he labours
hard to convince us 'that the planetarians have
senses, and consequently ideas; wants,and there-
roes. arts and sciences and 'Manufactures, speller
to our own; unable to perceive the absolute ne.
tessity of so perfect a rehemblance, wean only
regret that our. author should have. strayed so far
In the wide regions' of analogy: We must, no
doubt, subscribe to his conclusions, could. we for
an instant imagine, that God could not create
heings capable of knowing and adoring him,
Without endowing theM with wants and desires
in every respect 'similar to thew his providence
has allotted ,to the human race. But when we
behold the immensitfot our sublunary creation,
and discover that this immensity is replete with
the most surprising diversity, we, reject his con.
elusions, not perceiving the necessity of believing
thateither the human form, Or the human mind,
are types of. the-.utmost perfection. to which
created.beingi Can possibly attain. It is, indeed,
highlyprobable, that).the tendency to organize-
tion, which is remarked :upon our own planet, Is
no less a general. lai:of nature than the principle
of universal geavitation,.• and consequently that
the effects'it produces are not WI varied. and In.
finite. It seems, therefore, more philosophical to
conclude, that the heavenly more
are inhabited
by beings whose nature,ideas,'life, &C. are suited
to the peculiar O'rgiftization-of the planets they
inhabit, and consequently widely different from
those of terrestrial beings. 'This 'conclusion will
be rendered more probable by considering bow
much the planets differ from our globe, and frail`
one another 'in their distance 'from the sun; the
inclination of their axes, .The length of their
revolutions, their magnitude's, &c.
It' the analogy we diSeover betiveen the planets
and our globe leads us to conclude that they re-
ils),i'eltayrnseentliausrstythieb)essd.,olioerks:os-sf
semble it in- many respects, the. similarity be-
tween-our sun and the fixed stars must indure ns
to believe that they also are suns, disp-eniing
, and
tnfinito
will convince us that
isfrieni that
arwttillitlitictyehlunont
utoptoisnpitzeomnsilgtilhiettutdbee,auattlyd,
tah-etniommuziessu ;rat
(lit:).
-That they are
werea
inn,
:lout t s createdof,
the fohreativteen.uss.e of man, or
possibly ilet
lances of the fixed stars,
they
yo
were
.nature, we
has ever
useful to us,,no one can
wisdom ;
exontining.. into the operations of
readily perdeive that Divinebut
connected individual, advantaee A. universal
can embrace at one: glance memense chain
utility t. an arrangcilUdeeantw.
of causes and effects could olone establish. So
ttith the mind
consonant is this
sound.pbilosophy, that even
antiquity, 'Pythagoras, le greatest sages of
Anaximander, and others pt citrus, .Anaximenes,
a plurality.of worlds'-'anci baPht the doctrine of
• stars
were
the _ e !eyed that the fixed
it of other. t
p.anetary tistems.
the
priinnicnidpletshao:

Reason alone led them to this conclusion, for
they had not that more perfect notion of God,
and of his attributes, which we have received
from Revelation : but this remarkable accord
between the dictates of simple reason, and the
Conclusion to which we are led by the superior
light of Revelation, is no trifling testimony ia
favour of the opinion which has been here main-
tained.
Itlidhurst.

A. P.