Clearfield Republican. [volume] (Clearfield, Pa.) 1851-1937, 1873-12-17
oAIAHrlh lhAD IA, WEDNESDAY DECEMBER IT. 1873

His devil-fish, with oulstretched arms
Vas only "four or five feet in diane.
tcr," and had no snake-like append.
ages reaching out thirty feet. The
BODY, Too, was nothing in comparison
With that Of our kraken. "Fact is of.
ten stranger than fiction" The wild.
oat dreams of the novelist are often
surpassed by realities.
Whata horrible thing be entwined
inthc embrace OF those clammy corpse
like arms, and TO feel their folds creep.
ing and gliding around you, and the
disks, with their cold, adhesive touch,
gIsing themselves to you with grasp
that nothing could relax. The mon
stcr darts them out with snake. like.
I'nndtIati,ig mUron swiftly they cnde
around their victim, with pressure
IKE tightening cord, the suckers
feeling like 80 many mouths dcvour-
ing him at the same time. Slowly
tho horrible arms, supple as leather,
strong as steel, cold as death, draw
their prey under the terrible beall,
and press it against the glutinous mass
which forms the body. The cold,
slimy grasp paralyzes the victim with
terror as the powerful mandibles rend
and devour. Each of the eight arms
carries fifty sucking disks, according
to Victor Hugo, or 400 in all. Proba,
bly, the monster have been descrb-
ing has many more.
These suckers act on the principle
of a cupping-glass. Each of them
consists of firm, neshy, cartilaginous
ring, across which disk of muscular
membrane is stretched, with q circu-
lar aperture in tho centre. A cone
shaped mass of flesh fills this aperture,
like q piston, capable of being drawn
backward The membranous disk
itself can also be drawn in. The mo-
ment one of the sucking disks of q
tontacle touches the prey the devil-fish |
feels the contact and with the speed
OF lightning retracts the 0eshy piston.
A vacuum is thus created, and the
edges of the disk arc pressed against
the surface of the victim with a force
equal to the weight of the water that
is above it, added to the weight of tho
If need be-as when
the victim makes strenuous efforts 10
escape--the vacuum, and consequently
the adhesion, is increased by the with
drawal of the membranous disk. The
more the victim writhes il comes in
contact with more and more of the
disks in succession, each of which ad-
heres, and other arms soon encirclo il
and drag IL 10 the central month
When we take into account tho size
)f some of these cuttles, and their
tremendous power, we do no wonder I
At the tales told in Oriental legends,
Ind credited once by our fashioned {
of some OF them sufficient.
y colossal in di.a s.s;s.s ~ ehivo ;
heir arms over u ships hull and drag
Ter under water. There may be '
ouch Of cxaggeration in this, but GER {
ain it is that this monster met with i
D Conception Bay was n mighty "ugly J
,ustomer," and could have made short I
york with any small craft had he set '
lis mind on il. i am not aware that {
my cutie so large hns been seen in
old latitudes. II is in the tropical I
eas that largo cuttlos are usually q
ound. Three Others of gigantic size :
we're reported to have been seen at !
arious times in our bays, but we |
yere incredulous regarding their size ]
i'll now. I