Sea Monsters Of Old

SEA MONSTERS OF OLD.

The kraken was one of the sea monsters of old, and if all the stories told about its wondrous size and doings are true it overshadowed the serpent as much as the latter does the common garter snake. Daedalus declares that this marine giant caused tidal waves by swallowing a goodly part of the waters of the ocean and then belching them out again. He also makes mention of the fact that its gigantic horny beak was often mistaken for mountain peaks suddenly shoved into sight by the internal convulsions of the earth. Bishop Pontoppidan, a truthful member of the Copenhagen royal academy, is much more conservative in his estimates of its size, giving it as his opinion that they were seldom found more than "the half of an Italian mile in length and not larger in diameter than the cathedral at The Hague."

He also says that its body was frequent mistaken by sailors for an island, "so that people landed upon it and were engulfed in a maelstrom of water when the creature sank to its bidden ocean den." Other authorities testify that its beak from the eyes to the point "was longer than the mainmast of a man-of -war."