Page:The fairy tales of science.djvu/22

 history were the monarchs of all they surveyed, and had no troublesome Seven Champions to dispute their sway.

We are on the shores of the Ancient Ocean. We search in vain for any sign of Man's handiwork; no iron steam-ship, no vessel of war, no rude canoe even, has yet been launched upon its bosom, though the tides ebb and flow, and the waves chant their eternal hymn, according to those immutable laws which the Creator ordained at the beginning.

The ocean teems with life, but it contains no single creature which has its exact likeness in modern seas. Its fishes belong for the most part to the great Shark family, but their forms are much more uncouth than those of their savage descendants. No whales, dolphins, nor porpoises are to be found in these waters, their places being filled up by strange marine reptiles, which equal them in bulk, and greatly surpass them in voraciousness.

Yonder is one of these old monsters of the deep: as it rests there with its broad back glistening in the sun, it might easily be mistaken for some rocky islet—but see, it moves! Now it lashes the water with its enormous tail, creating quite a whirlpool in its neighbourhood—now it raises its huge head, and displays a row of teeth at which the bravest might shudder—and now it darts away from the shore, leaving a wide track of foam on the dark blue waters.