Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1878-09-27

Another terror of the deep is the many
armed prodigy called octopus, deyil-hsh, cut
tle-fsh, sepia, or squid, but the last name is
generally applied to the smaller species, com
mon in the Mediterranean, where it is dried
and eaten. In the China seas sepia for paint
ing is extracted from it but the larger kind,
called by old writers the krakcn, has only re-
Gently come into prominence as credible re-
ality. Hakluyt's Voyages contain thrilling
illustrations Of the kraken reaching up its
long arms into the rigging of ships, pulling
them over or quietly helping itself to the ter
ror-stricken crew; but these have been con
sidered fabulous representations, and Victor
Hugo's description of the wonderful devil
fish in "The Toilcrs Of the Sea- has been ac-
cepted chiefly as an example of the exhaust
less fecundty of that writer's imagination
rather than an actual creature. But within
three or four years too many specimens of
the cuttle-fish have been encountered with a
spread of thirty to sixty feet to the arms, to
make this creature any longer the subject of
legitimate laughter, especially as it has been
found to have a spidor-like wGy Of creeping
on its victim and drawing it down to its den
at the bottom of the sea, as in the case of the
poor Indian girl recently caught in the dead
ly embrace Of an octopus near NGncouver's
Island.
doubt not similar certainty will be reach
GU IGkhIuluR llle NGAtu NNtbUOu uDOul llb
sea-serpent' There is nothing more absurd
than the incredulous levity of the popular
mind concerning this mysterious serpent.
What is there more impossible about large
wator-snake than a large fish? There are
small fishes and large fishes small water
snakes, and why not large onesf What is an
eel but n sea-serpent? and are there not wa
ter-snakes in every brook? Perhaps the
large sea-serpent is a comparatively new Gre
alton evolved on the Darwinian theory; per-
haps, like the whale, it changes its habitat,
and has but recently become common in
northern waters or, us has been suggested,
perhaps it is deep-sea creature frightened to
the surface by some great submarine convul-
sion. The witnesses to this monster have
been so many and Of good n character for
crcdiblity that the laugh should really be
against those who do not believe in the exist
ence of the sea-scrpont.
There is kind of sea-snnke seen sometimes
which is not revealed TO those who voyage in
steamers; many are the cean-phenomena
which they lose, seen only by those who go
in Eailng-ships, for the steamer frightens
away many sea wonders. There are days in
mid-ocean-and one need not go to the dol
drums or hOrse-latitudes to find thenl--when
day after day, week after week, the breezeS
are asleep. and the spirits of the storms hav-
ing gone below to sport with the nereids, aud
Neptune aud Amphitrte are holding fostal
times in the sea-green caves Of ocean. it seems
as if there was nothing left but sea and sky
and insphcred between them one solitary ship
gazing at its own shadow, and held motion
less as if paralyzed there forever on an en-
chanted sea, while the sun rises and sets in a
cloudless sky, reflected on the oily surface of
the sea as on a mirror of FURNISHED gold. At
night the moon, yellow and full, rises in the
east as the sun goes down in the west, like an
image Of the sun, but throws no reflection
from the horizon on the water, so absolutely
smooth aud CLASSY is the sea. Only, as one
looks over the side of the ship in that appal-
ling and seemingly eternal silence Of the il
limitable ocean, lie sees three or four round
balls of silver eerily quivering by the ship,
when the moon is at the zenith, which look
as if they were magic balls tossed up from the
depths below by unseen tricksy sprites of the
sea. Perchance there is another ship float
ing in company miles away, and gradually,
by an agency that seems supernatural, she
draws gradually nearer, although there is nev-
| er a breath of air stirring. But this is ex-
planned from the simple fact that there are
| always unseen currents moving, and one ship
will be more or less affected than another by
| them according to its draught or weight. 1t
is at such time that objects float by which
one would never have supposed to exist in the
heh-nob ouiy nau'IIl anu iofely IoItuBuese
men-of-war and jelly-tish fringed with long
crimson and purple hair, but alg@ Of a fairy
| like grace that almost exceeds belief, and SER
| pents six to eight feet long, transparent as if
made of elastic glass of a delicately -modulat-
ed pearly gray, striped and spotted with gem
| like points of green, scarlet, and blue. 1t is
| like II revelation of an unseen world; and so
it is, for the sea, much as it las been explor-
ed, is yet like the human brain, full of won
ders and mysteries yet unrevealed, hidden
far, far down where no human eye has yet
penetrated. From time to time a fresh dis
covery is made, as in the case of the fish
brought up by the Challenger exploring eX-
pedtion of the coast of Portugal fish liv-
ing at the bottom of the sea and kept togeth-
er by the pressure of the water when brought
to the surface it exploded to atoms.-Apple-
tons Journal for OctOJer.