A SEA MONSTER.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5168, 25 November 1884, Page 3

A SEA MONSTER.

♦ Nature, of Sept. 27, contained the following letter from Mr Alfred Morris, of Sydney, New South Wales : — A friend of mine, Captain W.. Hopkins, of the Mary Ogilvie, who has just returned from a voyage all round Australia, l^as given me the following information, •which I forward yon for publication, not so much because of its interesting charac'fcer,.bnt in order that other travellers may -throw some light on .the character of the animal, which, if an octopus, must be of much larger dimensions -than those usually anet .with : — On June 15, whenin lat. 21deg 37sec £?., and lon. 113de.g 49sec E., about fiy«.mile3 off the Exmouth G-ulf, on the ■western coast of the Ccstinent, he saw as immense creature which he took to be. a species of .©ctopus. Hie attention was drawa toifrby a perfect cloud of seabirds., and at firat ,fee naturally thought it must be a dead carcase. On approaching it, however, he found it was aliye, and sluggishly disporting itself. In shape it was like a violin,, but of immense sire, with some six feelers about the greater diameter ,©f the violin. It lay almost flat upon the water, wa3 of a darjc grey above and a lighter grey below, .and was continually elevating one of its feelers, apparently twice the thickness of a man's arm, to & height of about 6ft or Bft. It appeared to be 7omiting, and as the birds were evi4ently feeding, that accounted for their presence in such numbers. Its size was so great -that had it grasped the vessel it could easily have capsized it. The captain, therefore, got out of the way as quickly as possible, and -without making definite measurements ; but a large ■whale in the vicinity looked quite diminutive. It ia a pity that something mor<? exact as to size is not available, but I think the description is sufficient to convey an idea of the nature of the monster. All #long thf northern and western coaats of

! the Continent vast Bhoals of pumice, in j portions varying in size from ordinary j gravel to about a foot in diameter, and j completely covered with barnacles, were I passed through, j .