Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1874-03-07
OCEAN SECRETS.


What do we know about things ten
miles down in the s.urendous valleys
! Of the ocean? On land. here, the veSe-
tatirn of the Alpine base is not that
! of its summit; the wild goat .kiws upon
! the peaks of the Himalayas, but the
rlinoceros has his iairs miles below.
( Our acquaintance with the mysteries OF
the deep mus; be absolutely and liter
ally superficial, for we may assume that
its mountain tops alone are revealed to
us. and these dimlv, and that to its val
leys or senses can never penetrate.
All the creatures that disport them
selves on or near the surface are more
or less familiar to us-the whales, the
proposes, and the sharks, that come
tdnbino over its undulations much in
the same way that bulfaloes come foun-
derinG over the waves of the prairie.
I The countless broods that feed on its
shallow banks, and are taken therefrom
to feed shallower mortals, are all within
our grasp, and we grasp them. On the
verge of an iceberg sits cnthronel the
walrus, and we salute him as the Gle
plant of the sea, and esteem him un-
sreakably for the commercial value Of
his ivory tusks. The huge sea-cow has
no mystery for us. We wake the harm
less creature up from its bed of sea-
weed on the isolated rock, and having
wished it good morning, we stick
spears into it, and convert it to the no.
bic purposes of gain. The magnificent
sea unicorn, king. of the Arctic waters,
is no stranger to us, which is just so
much The orse for him. We have cog
nizance of all these sea creatures and
many more, the range of which appears
to be in what we call the upper regions
Of the deep; but what can we aver of
the mystic realms that lie far, far down
about the bases OF the great submarine
mountain ranges-monntains compared
with which our highest dry land peaks
are possibly nothing but mere hill
locks?
There is a sea monster known to fish
ermen as the horned ray, monster
I most fearful in itself, but interesting as
an illustration of that which is, and n
suggestion of that which may be-a
veritable dragon of the sea, whose later
nal fins extend like wings, and fire.
quently measure more than thirty feet
from tipto tip. This voracious fish will
sometimes make an appearance among
the swimmers in the surf, and taking
one under each arm, so to speak, de-
scend with them to depths unknown.
Until the ocean shall have been dried
IN or drained off. no human beinr can
ever explore the strange grottoes into
which this hideous man eater glides
with its prey. The great fishes and sea
beasts may be creatures of the upper
deep alone, never descending below q
certain depth, lest they encounter far
more hideous and powerful monsters
than themselves, which dwell at the
bases of the marine mountains leagues
farther below. One can easily imagine
a polypus anchored there below in some
distracting valley, of which it is lord
and tyrant-a stupendouS mass of bloat-
ed matter, grasping at everything with
in circumference of half mile, and
the absorbent of all living creatures
under the size of whale. In the Chi
ma sea there are bivalves, whether oys-
tiers or mussels I ain not certain, the
shells of which are large enough to con-
tain man properly doubled up. If q
monster like this inhabit comparative
shadows, there is no limit to ones i'm.
aginings of the bivalvular enormities al
the bottom, ten miles farther down.
atlantic Monthly.