One of the ribbon-fish mentioned by Dr. Wilson, which was captured, and measured more than 60 feet in length, might however fairly take its place among strange sea creatures. I scarcely know whether to add to the number a monstrous animal like a tadpole, or even more perhaps like a gigantic skate, 200 feet in length, said to have been seen in the Malacca Straits by Captain Webster and Surgeon Anderson, of the ship _Nestor_. Perhaps, indeed, this monster, mistaken in the first instance for a shoal, but presently found to be travelling along at the rate of about ten knots an hour, better deserves to be called a strange sea creature even than any of those which have been dealt with in the preceding pages. But the only account I have yet seen of Captain Webster’s statement, and Mr. Anderson’s corroboration, appeared in an American newspaper; and though the story is exceedingly well authenticated if the newspaper account of the matter is true, it would not be at all a new feature in American journalism if not only the story itself, but all the alleged circumstances of its narration, should in the long run prove to be pure invention. _ON SOME MARVELS IN TELEGRAPHY._ Within the last few years Electric Telegraphy has received some developments which seem wonderful even by comparison with those other wonders which had before been achieved by this method of communication. In reality, all the marvels of electric telegraphy are involved, so to speak, in the great marvel of electricity itself, a phenomenon as yet utterly beyond the interpretation of physicists, though not more so than its fellow marvels, light and heat. We may, indeed, draw a comparison between some of the most wonderful results which have recently been achieved by the study of heat and light and those effected in the application of electricity to telegraphy. It is as startling to those unfamiliar with the characteristics of light, or rather with certain peculiarities resulting from these characteristics, to be told that an astronomer can tell whether there is water in the air of Mars or Venus, or iron vapour in the atmosphere of Aldebaran or Betelgeux, as it is to those unfamiliar with the characteristics of electricity, or with the results obtained in consequence of these characteristics, to be told that a written message can be copied by telegraph, a map or diagram reproduced, or, most wonderful of all, a musical air correctly repeated, or a verbal message made verbally audible. Telegraphic marvels such as these bear to the original marvel of mere telegraphic communication, somewhat the same relation which the marvels of spectroscopic analysis as applied to the celestial orbs bear to that older marvel, the telescopic scrutiny of those bodies. In each case, also, there lies at the back of all these marvels a greater marvel yet—electricity in the one case, light in the other.