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10 FRIDAY, MAY 17,J918. SUNDAY MORNING,' MA X iy, ly IS. ME ST MIEHMffiK amwM Foi assk TAME Undertaking: Establishments Give Up Entire Stocks of Formaldehyde to Preserve Monster Fish -Nineteen Barrels Are Used. VAST THRONGS FLOCK TO SEE WEIRD DEEP SEA MYSTERY CONSERVATIVELY ESTIMATED THAT EXHIBITION WILL BE SEEN BY AT LEAST 10,000 PEOPLE WHILE HERE. SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. RUSHES EXPERT TO SCENE Captain Thompson's Efforts to Save His Great Prize More Heroic and Thrilling Than Its Capture. T WAS an eventful day in Miami's history when Captain Charles H. Thompson finally landed his strange and mysteri ous deep sea monster and had it hauled up on the ways at the local docks. It is safe to say that no less than ten thousand people were eye-witnsses to the scene who rmember it as though it happend yesterday. As already explained in previous articles, the fish is the larg est known in history and it is believed by many, including the lead ing theologians of the country, that it was a fish of this species that swallowed the prophet Jonah,, as no other fish known to naturalists could have accomplished the feat. The fish is of wonderful Interest, not atone on account of its tremendous size, but from a scientific and zoological standpoint as well, as it is the only one of its species ever captured. Captain Thompson was quick to r.-cognibe the great value of his stupen dous prize and with characteristic en ergy and foresight he at once began the huge task of preserving it. To ac complish this great task he displayed Hi much courage and heroism as he lil in ranturin the monster. As a matter of fact it required, as much n..Tve and fortitude to preserve this monster mass of flesh as it did to cap ture it in the terrific battle which last ed thirty-nine hours. Police Force Called Out. The crowd that swarmed around tne monster after it was gotten on the wharf at Miami, was so great tliat in ijuru sflf-defense Captain Thompson t is forced to call out the police force to nuiinttin order while he rigged up a t-Mivas screen around the creature. Two n:-n were kept busy for the entire day I iising the people in and out so tnat til I inbrht have a chance' to see the monster. In the meantime Captain Thompson had wired the authorities of the Smith sonian Institution at Washington ad vising them of hl remarkable capture and asking for advice and assistance in preserving it. No response was forth coming, the authorities evidently sus pecting that they were called on to deal with another one of the "big fish stories" about which they were accus tomed to hear such exaggerated state ments at this season of the year. Captain Thompson was beginning tc feel apprehensive regarding tne situa tion, whereupon Dr. Gudger, a gentle man whose scientific attainments were not unknown in Washington, wired a confirmation of the captain's remark able claim and sfrongly advised that in the interest of science, the Smithsonian Institution should lend all possible aid in preserving such a rare specimen for the benefit of posterity. The result was an immediate answer with instructions as to the proper course to be pursued, and also recom mending that Professor J. S. Warm- heath, an eminent naturalist and expert taxidermist, who had accompanied one .f Peary's polar expeditions, be en gaged to prepare and mount the big fish. 'But before Professor Warmbeth could arrive." said Captain Thompson, in relating the story of his great un dertaking. "I soon realized that drastic steps had to be taken if I would save my prize. "The monstrous piece of flesh, lying there in the hot sun, was showing un mistakable signs vof decomposition. Of course no kind of fish smells exactly like attar of roses, no matter how freh it may be, so when people be gan, complaining of the odor and were edging away from Us vicinity and when the board of health took action and de clared the carcass a menace to the health of the community, I got busy right away. IVIre I'ndertakera for Helpi, "I had already wired to all the under taking establishments on the East Coast from Jacksonville to Kiy West, asking for assistance and also buying every tllon of formaldehyde I could get. "The great, lubberly carcass was got ten into the water and towed across cass immense flocks of gulls, carrion. crows and other sinister birds of prey, i drawn there by the all-penetrating odor of the animal, sw irled around overhead in clouds that almost darken ed the sky. "At first we paid little attention to their presence, as they did not bother us, but as their numbers increased by new and more voracious arrivals from every point of the compass the eager birds became bolder, swooping down by hundreds and, alighting on. the car cass, proceeded to dispute with us for its possesion. . , Men Work Like Trojans. "The avidity to' get at the feast was so great we actually had to beat them off with sticks in order to go on with our work unimpeded by their activities. They did not in the least mind the strong disinfectants we used, but tried to tear pieces of flesh from the mass by beak and claw. "Xobody could -keep at such " an un pleasant job for long at a time, and we were obliged to work in relays. One would endure it as long as possible,! then you would see him drop his tools! and run off as far to windward as it wa9 possible to go and there drown down on the sand to rest and breathe a little fresh, Invigorating air. "We had to construct a big wooden t tank, capable of holding hundreds of gallons of chemicals," in which, the car cass was placed and where it remained for several days. Accurate, measure ments of the carcass were Tfiade and a framework of wood and steel construct ed which was covered with a coating of plaster, so as to make an exact replica of the inside of the huge monster as it lay on the beach. Twelve hun dred feet of lumber, 1,700 pounds of stell bars, rods and bolts, and barrel after barrel of plaster were used to fHl the enormous cavity after the inter nal organs were removed. "The huge mass of flesh was how dis sected so that the material organs and the anatomy of the creature might be studied. On cutting open the stomach we were astonished to find it contain ing the perfect body of a huge octo pus that weighed 1,500 pounds. "From its condition It was evident that the octopus had been taken alive at one gulp and had remained alive, for sev eral days after it had been swallowed. Figures Arc Astounding. "After the carcass had been thor oughly' Impregnated with the chemical preservatives it was taken out of the immense vat and preparations were made to mount it in its natural life like form and color. Th9 carcass was so heavy and cumbersome that we found it extremely difficult to manipu late and a large force of men were re quired to handle it. "When spread out on the ground the carcass measured forty-five feet long by nearly twenty-five feet in circum ference and the hide was found to be three Inches thick. If it enormous hide could have been tanned into- pli able leather and split up into quarter inch thicknesses it would have furnish ed enough material to make 1,200 leather suitcases, or 2,700 pairs of shoes. Cut into inch strips and laid end to end it would have extended twenty-four miles, and these strips could have been made up into 43,20u men's leather belts, each thirty-six inches long. - j "If all the material in this immense Not in recent years, perhaps has any thing aroused such widespread Interest and discussion among all classes of people In Pensacola as has this unique exhibit. Undoubtedly it has attracted more attention than anything of tfie kind which ever came here before. Many thousands of visitors have crowded the " yacht since It has been here and many have been so profoundly Impressed and have become so Intensely Interested with what they have seen that they have gone away and have urged their friends not to miss the opportunity to see the great est zoological wonder of all times. On account of the wonderful amount of interest shown it is .now conserv atively estimated that the exhibition will be seen by at least ten ,tn"busand people during the next few days. It is now believed, In fact, that Pensacola will almost equal Tampa's record, where the fish was seen by many thou sands of people. Among the thousands who have al ready seen the exhibit were a number from nearly towns, some of whom came from a distance of fifty and sixty miles away. Already the people of other cities are beginning to make in quiries and have urgently requested Captain Thompson to include thosa towns in his itineray. The Captain now has the matter under advisement and will announce his decision later in the week. Although there are several lecturers aboard Captain hompson's yacht who explain the many facts of interest re garding the fish. Captain Thompson himself seems to be the center of at traction, and he is called upon to an swer a great many curious questions "It Is surprising," said the captain. "how many people seem to be interest ed in the story of Jonah and the pos sibility of there being a fish big enough to have swallowed him. Every where I go people ask me about that the very first thing. "There are two or three species of whale to be found in the Mediterra nean," he continued "but the great fish that swallowed the prophet cannot properly be identified with any of them. Only the sperm whale has a throat large enough to admit the body of a man, yet the natural food of the whale species consists of small animals such as medusae and crustacae. that abound in all semi-tropical waters. "Before I caught this monster off the Florida Keys, the only fish known to naturalists capable of swallowing a man would be a large specimen of the white shark, which sometimes attains the length of thirty feet. It is said that the whole body of a man clad in armor has been found in the stomach of a white shark. Captain King in his survey of Australia says he caught one that could have swallowed a man vrith the greatest ease. - There is also the well authenticated case of a shark of this species having swallowed a horse." 'T reckon the captain's big fish here could have swallowed a horse, too, if he had wanted to,' remarked a young man, pointing to the huge creature. "Well, I guess rather," declared me captain with a grin. - "How easily he could have done it you may judge from the fact that we found an octopus j weighing nearly a ton in its stomach." , : Captain Thompson is now meeting the public daily on board, his yacht at Captain Bennie Edmundson s wharf. fish by which they are able to perceive; WONDERFUL MARINE EXHIBIT ON CAPTAIN THOMPSON'S YACHT Collection Contains Many Rare Specimens and Is Considered One of the Finest and Most Complete in America. Second only in Interest to the Deep Sea Mystery itself, which is attracting thousands of visitors to Captain Thompson's yacht at Captain Bennie Edmundson's wharf, is the captain's marvelous marine exhibit, which Is considered by many. wh? have seen it to be one of the finest and most com plete private collections in America, Among the rare speclmeus are an octopus, one of the most repulsive creatures Imaginable; a devil-fish; ham'j merhead shark: angel fish: a giant sail fish, with, a sail two and half feet long and one and- a half feet wide: a giant baracouta over seven feet long and that weighed 150 pounds and wita a mouth and teeth large enough to bie a man's arm off, to say nothing of hundreds of other marvels of the great deep, all of which are shown in their natural forms and coiors. One of the most interesting and sin gular specimens of the entire collec tion is the baby hammerhead shark with the singular elongated head irom which it derives its name. The eyes are situated on the extreme outer edge of the "hammer," so that it can cover an unusually wide range of vision. The hammerheads grow to jk length of fifteen fc?t and bring forth their young alive. The tiger shark is the terror of the seas. Growing to a length of .thirty feet, they inhabit the warm waters or the tropics and often ascend the gnif stream to more northerly latitudes, where they are a menace to bathers In summer. ..' The angel fish la a curious creature whose place In nature is midway be tween th"e shark and the ray. Their targe pectoral fins projecting far out on each side have a fancied resem blance to wings which is their only angelic feature. Tew creatures of the sea have a more horrible appearance than the octopus, about which some of the most gruesome stories ever written have been told. Another interesting speci men of marine life Is the giant sail fish. Captain Thompson's specimen is one of the largest ever captured on tne East Coast,' measuring seven feet in length. Other specimens are a giant sword fish, giant Jewf ish, leather fish, dol phin, amber jack, parrot fish, porcu pine fish and others too numerous to mention, all of which are the fnest specimens obtainable and In a perfect state of preservation. Now on exhibition in Pensacola at Captain Benhle Edmundson's wharf. Captain Bennie Edmundson's wharf. Hours: 100 a. m. to 10:30 p. m. Adv. Facts of Interest About the Deep Sea Monster Measures 45 feet In length. Weighs 15 tons or thirty thousand pounds. ' - Its liver alone weighed 1,700 pounds or more than ten full grown men put together. " " It is twenty-three feet around the body, and its tail measures ten feet from tip to tip. It had swallowed an octopus weighing one - thousand five hundred pounds which was still alive In its stomach when caught. If could have swallowed twenty Jonahs without suffering the slight, est pangs of indigestion. It smashed a boat into thousands of, pieces and crushed the rud der and propeller of a thirty-one ton yacht with a single swish of its mighty xail. Five harpoon thrusts and one nundred and fifty large calibre rifle bullets only served to increase its fury and it took five days to finally kill it. V c The battle tasted thirty nine hours two days and a night in open sea with monster dragging small boat at express train speed for hun dreds of miles. " 1 . Smithsonian authorities believe that the creature was an inhabi tant of pths more than fifteen hundred feet below the surface and that it was blown up by some subterranean or volcanic upheaval which in jured its diving apparatus so it was unable to return to its native depths. Its hide is three inches thick and enabled it to withstand the most enormous water pressure, a pressure almost inconceivable to man. Its eyes, which are very small, have no lids and were sever closed, indi cating that it lived at a depth where eyes were of no avail. The creature is not classified in natural history, the genus or spe cies is unknown and it is not only the most remarkable zoological spec" imen but the largest specimen of the fish tribe known'in history. Although the largest fish ever captured, scientists claim it was only a baby of its tribe and if it had lived to attain full growth it would have been two and one-half times as large. Every undertaking establishment on the Florida East Coast from Jacksonville to Key West gave up their entire, supply of formalde hyde to preserve the monster and over nineteen barrel, were used. It was mounted by J. S. Warmbeth, the celebrated .taxidermist of the Smithsonian Institution, who was also chosen to accompany Admiral Peary or. his famous trip to the Pole. : Now on exhibition In Pensacola aet Captain Bennie Edfundson's wharf on board Captain Thompson's large, sea-going yacht which he buiiwt at a cost of $30,000. Hours 10:00 a. m. to 10:30 p. m. .-. the presence of enemies, when danger threatens, where food Is to be found and so on. Some fishes are so sensi tive as to be able to distinguish be tween vibrations caused by a stone or a piece of bread dropped in the water, even at a distance of twenty-five feet or more. . "The bones of some fishes are ot a cartillaginous nature and remain so all their lives. In others the cartillage hardens, or ossifies, as the fish attains maturity. The vertebrae of. the Deep Sea Mystery is composed of cartillagin ous plates which show the beginning of ossification. This fact is indubit able proof that the creature wa9 far from the adult age, was in fact a baby. Such an animal would be of extremely slow growth and It might take several hundred, if nol a thousand,, years to arrive at maturity. "These and other details revealed by tke internal anatomy of the creature, leave no shadow of doubt that the Deep Sea Mytery is a true fish, but of a species hitherto tinheard of or seen" in any part of the world since recorded history began. It is therefore a unique specimen and will doubtless remain so for a long time to come." Appearing just as it did when It first! came out of the water; In the natural life-like form and color, this great zoo logical wonder Is now on exhibition on board of Captain Thompson's palatial yacht at Captain Bennie Edmundson's wharf.. Adv. Subscribe for The Journal, LOUD-TALKING MAN OnDERED PELEASED George W. Gilllngs. the lale of Man citizen, who came to this country ami Thursday had trouble talking: too loud la a movlner picture theatre, at the time a patriotic speaker had the stage was yesterday afternoon ordered re leased by Judge SheppanS of the Unit ed States District Court. ; NON.SUIT ENTERED. Non-suit waa entered In the United States District Court yesterday In th case of Clarence Smith against th Escambia Mill Company, claimlns $5,000 damages for alleged personal injuries. - DR. J. I. VANCE ELECTED ASSEMBLY ITODERATOf DUHANT, Okla., May 17. Dr. Jamei I. Vance, of Nashville, Tenn., wat elected moderator this afternon. by th Southern Presbyterian general assem bly. r ft'5 ( 0 ii Eggs If It!s Meats If It's Vegetables If It's Chickens or If It's Fish of Any PHONE US The Parlor Market .lZ3EHQXZSm Ml Discayne bay forty miles out to a desert1 hide had been. cut up into shoestrings KtnJsptt where, with the assistance of! of one-eighth inch diameter they would a numoer or nanus, t sri 10 wont to av. my prize. 'You "may imagine what an arduous i hdertaking this was when I tell you t4iat the creature's hlcfe was all of three Inches thick and sv tough we could hardly 1 make an Incision In Its surface with our sharpest knives. I. tell you that we worked like Trojans night and m a : ! n i v. 1 y . jor i"" ruiuuuuu ui tiio carcass Has getting worse all the time. Al though the monster was literaly de lutrd with disinfectants, ninteen bar being required to complete the job, as the mopt horrible ordeal of the tt I ever went through and one that may be -sure renuirrd an immense arn,Hint of nerve and fortitude to put over. . v ' "Vhr,e we were working on the car-. have reached, end to end, a distance of 30Z miles from one end of Florida to the other. These are tail figures, but just take your pencil and w;ork it out yourself and see, "Well, to resume, after a good deal of pulling and hauling we finally got the monster in shape to put on the finishing touches. The holes made by the harpoons and bullets were skill fully patched, artificial eyes fixed in place and other details carefully dressed up. Then the skin which had been somewhat bleached by the chemi cals in which It had lain, was re stored to its original color by a secret process known only to the taxider mist. After six months of uninter rupted, paintaking work, the Job was finally completed and av a total cost of more' than $3,000 . I was proud of the achievement, for I found myself in possession of the greatest example of the taxidermist's, art in America, if not In the world. The Deep Sea Mys tery now appears exactly as it did when 16 was first taken out of the water. ; Fish Has Beautiful Lines. "To say that I was delighted with the results of my labors expresses it mildly i'or one could not conceive of a more beautiful or perfect specimen of the true fish species. One would im agine on hearing of the enormous size of the creature that it would be more or less of a monstrosity and would have an awkward, ungainly, lubberly appearance. Just the opposite is true, however; as no fish ever possessed finer or more graceful lines. "Many doubting Thomases," contin ued Captain Thompson, "ignorant of natural history, on seeing the Dep Sea Mystery. for the first time are reauy to assert their belief that it is nothing but a whale. It has been entirely settled by scientific authority, however, that the creature is not a whale but a true fish. "Whales are lung breathing, wa'rm- niooded mammals that suckle tneir young, Inhaling - and exhaling air through a blow hole in the top of the head. The mouth is situated under the head and the tail is terminated by a horizontal fluke. Only one species of whale has a dorsal"fin. None of these characteristics can , be found in the Deep Sea Mystery except the dorsal fin. Its tail is vertical , like that of other fishes. , ; j Hundreds of Years Old. "Along each, side of the monster can be seen three lateral lines, which are found In nearly all fishes. These lines are believed to be sensory organs which enable the fish to perceive and discriminate between different kinds of vibrations in the water, just as human ears perceive different sounds -by the various kinds of air waves, or vibra tions, that strike the ear. These lines are thought to be the true ears of the 1 --';v. f t,... , Get Long BatterylLifef Through Good Battery Care Unless you give your battery the jeare it deserves' you ; can't expect it to keep on giving you the service you demaad. You can't get that service day in and day out unless you add distilled water unless you keep the battery charged. You can get every mile of service there is in that battery if you just follow carefullyi a few simple directions. We'll be glad to tell you lust how to take care of your bat tery if youll stop for a few minutes. And also ask us about the Still Better Willard Batterv with Threaded Rubber Insu lation. ' ,t :'t ; )'V &VpJ ' 1; WflUU(2lI?3J. -;: ! rensacoia Laufl tt t rt cn ana Macmne to. R L. BROWN, Manager PHONE 662-