Kills Monster Of The Deep.

New York Times 100 years ago today, April 17, 1913:
Blasting at Panama, Maybe, Drives Sea Serpents to the Surface.
    A week ago persons on the Anchor liner Caledonia were sure they had seen a sea serpent fifty feet long forging its way through the ocean at incredible speed. Capt. J. Tutt of the Hamburg-American liner Carl Schurz, which arrived yesterday from Port Limon, gave this account of a collision with a monster of the deep:
    "On April 8," said the Captain, "at 12:33 o'clock in the morning, an hour known as 'the graveyard watch' by mariners, a shock was felt at the fore part of the ship. The Carl Schurz had left Santa Marta on the day before, and was steaming at 16 knots an hour along the Colombian coast toward Port Limon.
    "After the shock the ship's speed seemed to diminish, although the engines were working well and the sea was smooth. It was bright moonlight. I went to the bow to see what was the matter and found that we had struck a sea monster, which I estimated to he some forty-two feet long and three tons in weight. The collision killed the monster, and it hung on the stem so that we had to go astern to get clear of the body. This sank immediately, leaving the surface of the sea a bright crimson."
    The Captain said that the body had broad stripes on the back and head, with patches like textile prints the size of a hand on the sides. It was a species of whale now almost extinct, he thought. The shock aroused the passengers, who came on deck to look at the dead monster.
    One of the officers .remarked that many strange serpents and large fish had been seen in the waters off the Colombian coast in the last three years of a species that had not been seen there since the days of the buccaneers on the Spanish Main. He thought that the blasting in the Panama Canal had disturbed them in their submarine caverns and driven them to the surface of the sea. It would not surprise him if so-called sea serpents were caught in the locks when the canal was opened the officer said.