The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1901-10-10
MONSTERS OF The DEEP SEA
FANTASTIC FISHES FROM THE
FLOOR OF THE OCEAN.

searchiights--sea serpcnts a-PlentJ
Way Down, Most Likely, But They
stay There.
Before the end of this year the world
will begin to learn such things about
the chasms of the deepest seas as il
never has dreamed of in its widest
dreams. The United States, Great
Britain, France, Germany and Den
mark are all approaching the point
where their scientists are ready to be-
gin systematic publication of results
attained in the various deep-sea ex-
ploring expeditions that were sent out
in the last few years.
The most remarkable among these
reports will be those telling of the work
of the German Valdivia expedition,
which recently explored the seas off the
American, African. Indian and Chinese
coasts, the final reports of the Agassiz
expedition through the Pacific Ocean,
lHe uIlHl TepOTlS uL the deIIldl ilieill-
bers Of the Challenger expedition,
which are being published now in Ger
many in a magnificent edition with col
ored plates, and the reports of the va
rious expeditions Of the Prince Of Mo-
naco.
Twenty-Five years ago the deep sea
was an unknown world. Here and
there, scattered in museums far apart
and gazed at with amazement and ig-
norant wonder and unavailing specu-
lation, were forty Of fifty monstrous
shapes. They were deep-sea forms
that, driven upward from their eternal
night by some fatality, had been picked
UP dead on the surface or washed
ashore. They taught the world moth
ing. Men did not even know that they
were deep-sea forms. 1t was believed
then that there was no life below a
depth of thousand feet. Those forty
or fifty uncanny creatures represented
no more to the world, scientific and lay,
than did the bodies Of the strange red
men which, according to tradition,
were washed on the shores of the old
world before the discovery of the new,
limiting at the existence of UNEMPLOYED
realms inhabited by unknown races,
but supplying no further information.
But when the first cropping wire arm
of the first deep-sea dredge vibrated on
the bottom in the ooze of the black
pits Of water, and those depths felt the
thrill of human life for the first time
since the world was evolved from form
lessness into being, at once new and
awful page III the stupendous book of
nature was unfolded. 1t was a chap
ter of Revelation.
The writer often has heard DR.. Bean
tell the feeling of worshipping wonder
and awe that overcame the two scien-
lists when the trawl came UP to the
surface. He said: I'VE were both
standing by the mouth of the net when,
as the seaman lifted the end Of the bag,
two strange forms fell out on the deck.
A single glance was enough to tell us
that they were new to our fauna and
probably unknown to science. They
seemed like visitors from another
world, and none of the strange forms
which have since passed through our
laboratory has brought half so much
interest and enthusiasm. Now, look
ing back on the great harvest In the
field of oceanic ichthyology which we
have had the pleasure of helping to
garner in the fifteen years which have
passed since that happy and eventful
morning, 1t seems incredible that Amer
lean naturalists should not then have
known that only a few miles from the
American coast there was a fauna as
unlike that of our shore as anything
that could be found in the Indian Ocean
or In the seas of China"
To-day more than seven hundred diff
ferent kinds Of fish, taken from depths
of thousand feet and more, are
known to science and have been CLASH
fled. Great as this harvest is no man
knows or can imagine how many hun
dreds or even thousands Of other crea-
lures live down there. Fantastic and |
awesome are are the shapes that have |
been fished up, no man can tell what |
still more awesome shapes, defying the
power Of human conception, dwell In
the lost places of the sea- Imagine that |
men living beyond the clouds were to
drop a few wires with nets attached |
and trail them for a few thousand |
yards along our plains or through our
cities. What few and scattered speci-
mems would they collect! How could |
they form even the slightest idea of the
wonders that lie hidden from their
eyes? Even so 1t is with us and our
deep sea expeditions. 1t Is equally be-
yond our trained science to speculate
and our unframed imagination to
grasp, the unknown terrors the I'M
speakable enormities, the appalling de-
the unearthly horrors, that
lie in hiding deep In the very grave of
time.
The most grotesque imagination Of
believers in the supernatural of the
lark ages never formulated such
shapes as exist among the seven hun
1red varieties of deep sea- fish that al
'eady have been brought to-day None
If their vampires or baslisks was such
!, creature as is the blind Eurypharynx
What is not mouth in
lin Is tail. His mouth Is cavern.
The jaws are loose, and the creature
AN spread and stretch them around
lsh twice as large as he is. His tail is
hat of a reptile. His skin is black and
exactly similar to the wing
membrane of huge bat. His eyes are
mere speclSs, but specks that CLEAN
With concentrated wickedness. This in
misshapen form has been
lshed up from a depth of more than
nile (5,3SS feet), a depth at which the
ressure of the incumbent ocean water
; so tremendous that 1t would crush