with surprising velocity; as, in an interval of three days,
the Governor Higginson and the Columbus had observed it at
two different points of the chart, separated by a distance
of more than seven hundred nautical leagues.

Fifteen days later, two thousand miles farther off, the Helvetia,
of the Compagnie-Nationale, and the Shannon, of the Royal
Mail Steamship Company, sailing to windward in that portion
of the Atlantic lying between the United States and Europe,
respectively signalled the monster to each other in 42@ 15' N. lat.
and 60@ 35' W. long. In these simultaneous observations they
thought themselves justified in estimating the minimum length
of the mammal at more than three hundred and fifty feet,
as the Shannon and Helvetia were of smaller dimensions than it,
though they measured three hundred feet over all.

Now the largest whales, those which frequent those parts of the sea round
the Aleutian, Kulammak, and Umgullich islands, have never exceeded the length
of sixty yards, if they attain that.

In every place of great resort the monster was the fashion.
They sang of it in the cafes, ridiculed it in the papers, and represented
it on the stage. All kinds of stories were circulated regarding it.
There appeared in the papers caricatures of every gigantic and
imaginary creature, from the white whale, the terrible "Moby Dick"
of sub-arctic regions, to the immense kraken, whose tentacles could entangle
a ship of five hundred tons and hurry it into the abyss of the ocean.
The legends of ancient times were even revived.

Then burst forth the unending argument between the believers and the