A MILE BELOW

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 38, 14 February 1930, Page 4

A MILE BELOW

DEEP SEA MONSTERS

FISH WITH HEADLIGHTS

(Copyright.)

Jet black, whales with headlights to show them the way in tho darkness a mile under tho ocean's surface, great issh with "batteries" discharging violet rays downward while their eyes peer straight up, and • fish with grappling hooks attached to the mouth, are among the monsters of the deep captured during the summer months by Dr. William Beebo, famous American naturalist, director of tho Bermuda Oceauographie expedition of the New York Zoological Society, off Nonsuch Island.

Modern scienco and mechanics, wcra drawn on tho fullest extent during this expedition, which has accomr plished unexpected results. Hundreds of varieties of deep-water fish, including scores of specimens heretofore unknown and unclassified, were captured at the direction of Dr. Eoebe. Some- of the most difficult problems of the expedition were tho extraordinary and fantastic, forms ofsomo of tho deep-sea devils. Until this expedition only two fish with lighting apparatus were known, and these were shore fish from the East Indies, lhese two both had a sac or bag below the eyes containing what was supposed to be a mass of luminous bacteria. One specimen was fitted with a film of black pigment which it could draw up over tho light. But now, as a result of Dr. Beebe s most recent triumphs, many deep-sea fish with electric lighting apparatus are known, indicating that fish had outdone man by ages in . developing lighting. Some of Dr. Beebe's specimens of the so-called electric fish were found 500 fathoms (3000 feet) under the surface, where all living creatures are accustomed to constant blackness.

BARE FISH.

One jet black whale was captured which had a headlight rising like a periscope from the top of its head and casting a brilliant beam of light forward in the darkness. Another variety of iish was found with the ability to discharge violet lights downward from its body. This is the young argyropelieus, or silver hatchet fish. Scientists are making an exhaustive study of these fish to determine in detail the means of emanating these light rays. At one time a rare fish was found in Icelandic waters. It had two flaps of Bkin attached to two parts of its body without apparent design. Inside /the skin flap was only one organ, lhis specimen was,a-female some two feet in length, and the male of the species was never found. But now Dr. Beobe has discovered the young of both sexes an extremely remarkable catch. Both the male and female are perfect in form and miniatures of the tunsized fish. The male captured by the Beebe expedition has a fierce array of small grappling hooks attached to the m°One'of the rays taken on the expedition is of the spotted eagle variety which has an intensely poisonous spine. This ray conies from an interesting family which includes the electric ray, or torpedo. This ray has many of the properties of an electric battery. By some marvellous means it has pror duced electric cells front muscles of its body, which enable it to stun from this, fish will decompose water and actually produce a spark. How the electric power of the rays affects other fish may be mdicated by the fact that an electric ray which was captured and opened contained a two-pouna eel ana a one-pound-flounder. Other rays have been found containing four-pouna fish in. their stomachs. •' ' ' . The electric apparatus is made up ot two sets of tiny hexagonal cells, some 400 to the set, at the base of the pectoral fins.

RADIUM A3 BAIT,

One of the new devices utilised by these? scientific deep sea fishermen was. a radium lure. The radium was used as a luminous coating on hooks attached to sounding wires about a. mile long ir depths where there is no daylight. Perhaps no fisherman has ever had a thrill such as that experienced _ when there was a "nibble" on this lighted hook and the first catch was raised, a squid, which is a member of the octopus family. t Dr Beebe said that bo far as he was awaro radium lighted fish hooka had never been used before. The glowhooks he uses are nearly a foot long, and he hoped to catch some unusually gigantic deep-sea monster. That there are amazingly huge creatures of the deep has. been indicated by the presence of huge.scales in nets lowered into the blackness—but the nets have never been strong enough to hold the deep sea devils. " One of Dr. Beebe's chief troubles was that his field of research' off Nonsuch Island, Bermuda, was too rich. During his expedition he pioneered, for as a rule modern expeditions of the kind find little that is absolutely new and are devoted to a more accurate study of what is already known. But Dr. Beebe ana other members of his expedition found about as much that was new as that which was old. Dr. Beebe used the same, method of intensified study that he utilised in his scientific work in the jungle; and this is the first time in the history, of science that a single spot in the ocean has been studied so thoroughly.

COSTLY EQUIPMENT,

His expedition is one ■of the most completely equipped ever -to; undertake such a Btudy of under-water'life. The equipment includes many unusual devices such as the luminous fish hooks mentioned; milo-long wires and cables; specially devised nets with trap mouths designed to close when some of the mile-deep fish stray into them despite the "headlights" with which some of the fish are equipped. The paraphernalia includes costly cameras, deep BCa^ diving equipment, and laboratories for examination of the fish. When a catch is brought up it is studied by eminent scientists for classification purposes, examined in the laboratory, preserved, painted from life by artists, revealing as many of its secrets as science can demand.