SECRET WORLD OF SHARKS
ISBN 0595094996

Will a shark save your life? Some scientists believe sharks manufacture a chemical cure for human cancer? Burgess discusses this in SECRET WORLD OF THE SHARKS. Man has coexisted with sharks for the last two thousand years but only recently have scientists learned some of the secrets that make this marine animal unique. Here are the myths that man invented about this predator, along with factual accounts of shark attacks that made them so feared. Author and diver Robert F. Burgess tells of his personal experiences with sharks. Then he interviews some of the world's leading scientific shark authorities and we begin to learn about some of the shark's almost magical capabilities. Quite possibly this once feared predator of the seas may one day be mankind's most beneficial medical benefactor. Here is their story from myth to possible medical miracles, along with a super shark identification key. 164 pages. Paperback: 6 x 9-inches. © 1970/2000 Published by iUniverse.com.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS:

1. Shark Myths, Men and Gods
2. Shark Attack!
3. Sharks Out of the Past
4. Anatomy of a Shark
5. The Man-eaters
6. Fighting the Menace
7. Shark Fishing
8. The Shark Specialists
9. Schoolmistress of Sharks
10. Porpoises vs. Sharks
11. Science and Sharks
12. Barbarian or Benefactor?
APPENDIX I How to Identify a Shark
APPENDIX II U. S. Navy "Shark Danger" Ratings
APPENDIX III Maximum Sizes of Common Species of Sharks
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX

FROM THE BOOK:

    "The odd assortment of items found in one tigers stomach included among other things: three overcoats, a raincoat and a driver's license, plus a pair of old pants, a pair of shoes, a cow's hoof, the horns of a deer, twelve undigested lobsters and a chicken coop with a few feathers and bones left inside! Another was found to have consumed a keg of nails, a roll of tar paper and a carpenter's square. Everything except the carpenter.

    "Why sharks gulp down indigestible things is something we can only wonder about, for no one has ever found a reason. Some believe that sharks that follow ships swallow anything that is dropped or thrown overboard, believing it to be edible. However at least one scientist has another theory that may prove to be closer to the real reason. At the Mote Marine Laboratory, Captain H. David Baldridge, a Naval biochemist, devised a simple but effective method for weighing sharks underwater. In the course of this research he found that a 1,015-pound tiger shark weighed no more that seven pounds underwater. This remarkable buoyancy was due to the tiger's enormous oil-rich liver. Baldridge's studies indicate that it might be possible that a shark could become so buoyant from an excess of liver oil that it would have to expend considerably more effort to dive and maneuver. If this were the case, asks Baldridge, why then would it not be feasible for the shark to cope with the situation as would any good sailor and take on ballast? The added weight of the indigestible junk in a shark's stomach would immediately decrease its buoyancy and give it more maneuverability in the same way that submarines and blimps require slightly negative buoyancy for better control."

A REVIEW:

"Where we once believed shark myths, we now learn of the shark's almost magical abilities."
—Spyglass Publications

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© 2000, 2001 Robert F. Burgess.  All rights reserved.