THE SEA GIVES UP ITS SECRET

A few miles south of Miami, there has been picked up the body of a monster that calls to mind those gossips' tales of the fabled Sea Serpent,--tales which persist, even today, in almost every sea-side hamlet. In the days of our fathers, there were always to be found those who, with bated breath, had watched the demon of the sea; and from whose tongues the off-told tale slipped readily over a mug of ale in the smoky seamen's taverns. Weird and fearful were those stories, none the less so because the visible proofs of their truth were always lacking. Long and hot would be the resulting arguments; the scoffers declaring that the supposed monster was only an unusually large whale a school of dolphins, or a mass of drifting kelp. But the believers shook their heads, asserting that no one could tell what the sea might hide.

But now that a section of the animal's skull, fifteen feet long, seven feet wide, and weighing three tons has actually been towed ashore by the finder, Mr. Garretson, the question has passed from the realms of tradition into that of comparative anatomy. Not long now, before science will have superceded the illusory myth with evident fact; and thus another of those fascinating Mysteries of the Sea sinks into the oblivion of the Known.