“The miner did as I commanded and had gone down for a number of feet when suddenly from the dense blackness I saw a huge and indescribably hideous head with wide-open mouth shoot up. The jaws of the creature were wide open, showing its sharp-fanged teeth in its mouth looking large enough easily to take a man down at one gulp.     “The miner screamed with terror and I feared he would lose his hold and fall, but he clung desperately to the ladder while I thrust the barrel of the revolver full into the creature’s mouth and fired. With a tremendous hiss it dropped its head and then we saw it was a huge serpent like unto nothing I had ever heard of before.     As its struggling body came into my view I fired again, and the snake, slipping from the ledge on which it had stretched itself, fell with a squashy thud to the bottom of the shaft, where we could hear it thrashing about in struggles which momentarily grew weaker and finally ceased altogether. Then we went below, fastened a rope about the body of the reptile and hoisted it to the surface.     “There was then unfolded before our eyes the most hideous creature man could ever dream of. Its head was like the huge stone head of a frightfully carved Chinese dragon. Its body about the middle was as large as a man’s thigh, and its length was so great that I dare not say how many feet it measured. I very much regretted being unable to preserve the skin and bring it back for the study of scientists, but I was compelled to leave it behind.“—Philadelphia Telegraph. From— The Paducah Sun. (Paducah, Ky.), 04 March 1903. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.