The Somerset press. [volume] (Somerset, Ohio) 1873-1977, 1873-10-24
What We Know about the DeniZens
of the Depths of the Sea.
From the ATLANTIC Monthly.

VI VI
From the Atlantic Monthly
What do we know about things
ten miles down in the stupendous
valleys OF the ocean? On land, here,
the vegetation of the Alpine base is
not that of its summit; the wild
goat skips upon the peaks of the
Himalayas, but the rhinoceros has
his lair miles below. Our acquaint-
ance with the mysteries of the deep
must be absolutely. and literally su-
perfcial, for we may assume that its
mountain-tops alone are revealed to
us. and these dimly, and that to its
valleys our senses can never pene-
trate. All the creatures that dis
port thmselves at or near its surface
are more or less familiar 10 us-the
whales, the porpoises, the sharks;
that come tumbling over its undu-
lations much in the same way that
buffaloes come tumbling over the
waves of the prairies. The count
less broods that feed on its shallow
banks, and are taken therefrom to
feed shallower mortals, are sll with
in our grasp, and we grasp them
On the ledge Of the iceberg sits en-
throned the walrus, and we salute
him as the elephant of the sea, and
esteem him unspeakably for the com
mercial value of his ivory tusks.-
The huge sea-cow has no mystery
for us. We wake the harmless erea-
ture up from its bed of sea-weed on
the isolated rock, and having wished
it good morning, we stick spears in
to it, and convert it to the noble
purpose of gain. The magnificent
sea-unicorn, king Of the Arctic wa
ters, is no stranger to us, which is
Just so much the worse for him.
We have cognizance of all the sea-
creatures, and many more, the range
of which appears to be in the upper
regions of the deep, but what can
we aver of the mystic realms that
ne far, far down about the bases of
the great submarine mountain ran
ges - mountains compared with
which our highest dry-land peaks
are possibly nothing but mere hill
locks?
There is a sea-monster known to
fishermen as the Horned Ray, a
monster most fearful in itself, but
interesting as an illustration of that
which is, and a suggestion of that
which may be-a veritable dragon
of the sea, whose lateral fins extend
ike wings, and frequently measure
more than thirty feet from tip to
tip. This voracious fish will some
times make his appearance among
the swimmers in the surf, and tax
ing one under each arm, so to speak,
descend with them to depths un-
known. Until ocean shall have
dried up, or drained off, no human
being can ever explore the strange
grottoes into which this hideous
man-eater glides with his prey. The
great fishes and sea-beasts that are
known to us may be creatures Of the
upper deep alone, never descending
below a certain depth, lest they en-
counter far more hideous and power
full mounsters than themselves,
which dwell at the bases of the ma
rine mountains, leagues further
down. One can easily imagine a
polypus anchored there below in
some distracting valley, of which it
is lord and master-a stupendous
mass Of bloated matter grasping at
everything within a circumference
of half a mile, and absorbent of an
living creatures under the size of
whale.
In China sea there are bivalves-
whether oysters or muscles [ am not
certain-the shells of which are
large enough to contain a man prop
erly doubled up. If monster like
this inhabits comparatively shadows
there is no limit to ones imaginings
of the bivalvular enormities at the
bottom, ten miles further down.