The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1918-05-21
CAPTURED OFF EAST COAST OF
FLORIDA AFTER BATTLE OF
THIRTY-NINE HOURS.
DRAGS THREE MEN IN A
BOAT AT EXPRESS SPEED
On Captain Thompson's Yatch in
Tampa Bay Is a Collection of Many
Curious and Repulsive Creatures
From the Oceans Depths.


Miss Belle Zimmerman, of near
Bronwood, sent The News a copy of
the Tampa, Fla, Tribune giving a
thrilling account of the capture of a
marine wonder off the east coast of
Florida that weighs 10000 pounds.
The paper was sent to Miss Thinner
man by her uncle, Mr.. J. w. F. Tim
norman, who saw the monster and
vouches for the truthfulness of the
story.
The Tampa paper prints three
column account of the combat with
the fish.
Imagine yourself in mid-ocean at
midnight standing in the bow of a
small life boat being towed at ter
rife speed through the trackless
ocean by an unseen monster" Such
was the dramatic picture tersely
painted by Captain Charles H.
Thompson, the we'll known sportsman
of Miami, Fla, as he related to the
reporter of the Tribune the thrilling
story of his capture of the giant fish
known as the Deep Sea Mystery and
which is now on exhibition at the city
docks in front of the Tampa Bay
hotel
AS explained in a previous article
the fish is declared by scientists to
be the largest ever captured in the
history of the world 1t is creating
wonderful interest in Tampa and it is
cOnservatively estimated that it has
been seen by at least 10000 people.
Captain Thompson was returning
from an eventless fishing trip in the
Florida straits, and on his way back
to Miami had anchored for the night
in the channel off Knights Keys.
Soon after breakfast next day, while
the crew was preparing to weigh an
Choir, he discovered what appeared to
be a giant fin thrust above the sur
face some distance away The cap
tain and two men lowered the life
boat to make an investigation, and
when a harpoOn was thrown into the
object which was moving placidly
and lazily in the water a battle was
begun that lasted two days and nights
and in which the men were dragged
at lightning speed many miles by
their game.
Five harpoons and more than 100
bullets were used before the huge
creature was conquered 1t is not
shark of any known species, nor can
1t be classed as a whale. No one had
ever seen anything like it, and what
1t is no one knows.
Facts About the Monster.
Measures forty-five feet in length.
Weighs Is tons or thirty thousands
pounds.
It's liver alone weighed 1,7OO.
pounds, or more than ten full grown
men put together.
1t is twenty. three feet around the
body, and its tail measured ten feet
from tip to tip.
1t had swallowed an octopus
weighing 1,50G pounds, which was
still alive in its stomach when caught
1t could have swallowed twenty
Jonahs without the slightest pangs of
indigestion.
1t smashed a boat into thousands
of pieces and crushed the rudder and
propeller of a thirty-one-ton Yacht
with single swish of its mighty tail,
Five harpoon thrusts and $50 large
calibre rife bullets only served to in
crease its fury and it took five days
to finally kill it.
The battle lasted thirty-nine hours
two days and night-in open sea
with the monster dragging a small
boat at express train speed for hun
dreds of miles.
Smithsonian authorities believe the
creature was an inhabitant of depths
more than 1900 feet below the sur
face, and that it was blown up byi
some subterranean or volcanic up-
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So vn $500. -, -.