Part One
CHAPTER I
A SHIFTING REEF
The year 1866 was signalised by a remarkable incident, a mysterious and
puzzling phenomenon, which doubtless no one has yet forgotten. Not to
mention rumours which agitated the maritime population and excited the
public mind, even in the interior of continents, seafaring men were
particularly excited. Merchants, common sailors, captains of vessels,
skippers, both of Europe and America, naval officers of all countries,
and the Governments of several States on the two continents, were deeply
interested in the matter.
For some time past vessels had been met by “an enormous thing,” a long
object, spindle-shaped, occasionally
phosphorescent
, and infinitely larger and more rapid in its movements than a whale.
phosphorescent
adjective | phos·pho·res·cent- Exhibiting a luminescence that is caused by the absorption of radiations (as light or electrons) and continues for a noticeable time after these radiations have stopped
- Exhibiting an enduring luminescence without sensible heat
The facts relating to this apparition (entered in various log-books)
agreed in most respects as to the shape of the object or creature in
question, the untiring rapidity of its movements, its surprising power
of
locomotion
, and the peculiar life with which it seemed endowed. If it was a whale,
it surpassed in size all those hitherto classified in science. Taking
into consideration the mean of observations made at divers
times—rejecting the timid estimate of those who assigned to this object
a length of two hundred feet, equally with the exaggerated opinions
which set it down as a mile in width and three in length—we might fairly
conclude that this mysterious being surpassed greatly all dimensions
admitted by the learned ones of the day, if it existed at all. And that
it DID exist was an undeniable fact; and, with that tendency which
disposes the human mind in favour of the marvellous, we can understand
the excitement produced in the entire world by this supernatural
apparition. As to classing it in the list of fables, the idea was out of
the question.
locomotion
noun | lo·co·mo·tion- movement or the ability to move from one place to another
On the 20th of July, 1866, the steamer Governor Higginson, of the
Calcutta and Burnach Steam Navigation Company, had met this moving mass
five miles off the east coast of Australia. Captain Baker thought at
first that he was in the presence of an unknown sandbank; he even
prepared to determine its exact position when two columns of water,
projected by the mysterious object, shot with a hissing noise a hundred
and fifty feet up into the air. Now, unless the sandbank had been
submitted to the intermittent eruption of a geyser, the Governor
Higginson had to do neither more nor less than with an aquatic mammal,
unknown till then, which threw up from its blow-holes columns of water
mixed with air and vapour.
