The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-10-20

been classified. Great as this harvest is.
no man knows or can imagine how many
hundreds or even thousands of other
creatures live down there. Fantastic and
awesome as are the shapes that have
been fshed 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 liv-
ing beyond the clouds were to drop wires
With nets attached and trail them for a
lew thousand yards along our plains or
through our cities. What few and scat
tered specimens would they colieetl How
could they form even the slightest idea
of the wonders that lie hidden from their
eyes! Even so it is with US and our deep
sea expeditions. 1t is equally beyond our
trained science to speculate and our I'M
tralned imagination to grasp, the i'm
known terrors the unspeakable enornI-
ties, the appalling deformities, the I'M
earthly horrors, that lie in hiding deep in
the very grave Of time
Inc most groteSque imagination of be-
iievers in the supernatural of the Dark
Ages never formulated such shapes as ex-
lst among the 700 varieties of deep sea
Iish tnat nave already been brought to
Ilght None of their vampires or basilisks
was such creature as is the blind
EurypharynX pelecanoides. What is not
mouth in him is tail. His mouth is a
cavern. The jaws are loose and the crea-
tuTe can|spread and stretch them around
1lsh twice as large as he is His tail is
that OF reptile. His skin is black and
leathery, exactly similar to the wing
membrane of huge bat. His eyes are
mere specks, but -specks that CLEAN with
concentrated WickedneSs This incredibly
mlsshapen form has been fished up from
Qeptn OF more than mile (5,3SS feet,
depth at which the pressure of the inn
cumbent ocean water is so tremendous
mat 1t would crush a mans body into
nothing. Cast iron vessels that have been
lowered into these depths have been
crumpled up like tissue paper Yet this
sort, hnless, half-blind thing lives there
and sWims around in the pitch dark
Before it flee things even binder t1an'
II. The last faintest filtering of light from
ABOVE disappears totally at a depth of
less than 1000 feet. Beyond that tnere is
Walloplng and winding of countless bnud
Things, there are eyes. Some are tiny,
, IKE the baleful holes out Of which the
EurypharynX glareS Others are beauti-
full and prominent and glowing. They be
long to the lamp fish he ph"Sphul esccnt
creatures that light tleir way as they
proceed by sninTceri rg phusphoy escaEce
produced by rheir own nerves.
one of the light bearers is Linophryne
Iuc1fer, a truly demonaic form. On the
TOP OF his head he carries an apparatus
that is identical in shape with the COM
mon light bulb of our ordinary small
electric lamps From it he diffuses a
blurred white glow that is like star in
the blackness where he lives That glow
Eliminates a horned head and a face that
is a gargoyle. None of the uncanny,
frightening faces on Notre Danes ia
nous gargoyles can equal it in terror Of
expression and wild exaggeration.
Like most of the creatures fished up
from the great depth, this fish is vora-
cious enough to swallow animals far
ever captured fell a victim to this habit
1t swallowed another deep-sea fish that
was almost again as long as it was, and
SO disarranged it's internal mechanism
that it shot upward to the surface, where
it was picked up by Capt Andersen, who
was fishing for turtle off the island of
Madeira. Since then many specimens
have been taken by deep-sea travis. The
latter capture was made by the Prince
of Monaco, while travelling from his
yacht, the Princess Alice.
Another of the lamp fishes of the sea
that has been taken recently is Aethopro-
ra effulgens. This in one of the big-eyed
fish of the oce anic night. It's luminous or
gan is enormous, lying like a great gland
over the entire region behind the rear
orbit of the eye and overlapping the edge
of the jaw. He is a searchlight fish. No
/ human eye has seen the wonderful Great
ure flashing along in it's terrible habitat,
but scientific examination shows that the
luminous patch that covers it's head
serves exactly the purpose that the head
light of a locomotive does. The locomo-
tive smile is carried even further, for all
pEorescent spots that must give powerful
light when he is alive, for even dead
specimens have given off light enough
aglne Aethoprora dashing along on it's
trackless path exactly like a train, the
headlight shining with dazzling light in
front and the spots cleaning like the lit
windows of cars behind. The Albatross
caught one of these strange and beauti-
full creatures in the deep hole off Porto
Rico in S195 feet of water.
The Valdlvia captured one of the most
beautiful of the lamp fish in its recent
expedition. In his first report, which has
Just been made public, Prof. Carl Chun.
who had charge of the expedition, says
of this unique animal
at is a cephalopod Ga deep sea squid),
a representative of the genus Enoploteu-
this. 1t has twenty-four organs for gen.
Grating light. Each of it's great tentacles
has two. Each eye is surrounded by five.
The rest are distributed over the body.
Nothing at all of the wonderful mani
feStations of deep-sea forms can be COM
pared with the appearance of this splen-
did creature. The body appears as if it
was set with diadem of gorgeous gems
The center light of those around the
eyes is a bright flashing utramarine
blue; the rest are of a dainy mother-of-
pearl color. On the body the first row of
lights is ruby. The middle row is sky
blue. The rest are snow white and moth
er-of-pearl 1t was the most beautiful
sight that we ever saw
The Valdivia gathered scores of other
fish She was fitted out with new form
of trawl. which brought the best results
ever attained in deep-sea searching.
These nets in principle were just like the
common purses that close with metal
jaws The net is lowered with the Jaws
locked. A miniature propeller is so ad-
justed that as soon as the trawl reaches
the desired depth and tension is put on
the lines that hold it, its revolution opens
the jaws wide. The propeller screw can
be adjusted to close the jaws again after
making any desired number of revolu-
lions. Thus it was possible to fish any
depth and lock the net whenever desired
and the explorers were sure that the
trawl would bring to the surface only the
creatures dwelling in certain depths.
In the gulf of Guinea, 1900 feet below
1.-The surface, the Valdivias net brought
up a fish whose eyes had become tele-
scopes. They protruded outward and
straight upward from his queer, knife
like head He was Opisthroproclus solea-
-tus. Nobody can ever conjecture for
.iwhat odd purpose his eyes were formed in
this peculiar way.
What is considered one of the strangest
captures of the Valdivia was that of a
new form of predacious fish. He is so
queer that no scientist has yet been able
to classify him, and hence he is still
nameless. He, too, has telescope eyes, in
stead of a tail. he has immensely long