text:  The only incident which we ever heard of at all rivaling this story in an abortive ending is one which we once heard related at a party where the conversation turned on the singular manner in which valuable articles thrown into the sea had been sometimes recovered and restored to their owners--the ring of Polycrates which was found in the maw of a fish after having been sunk in deep waters being as the reader knows the first and most remarkable instance of such recoveries