Part 19

This account, if accepted in all its details, would certainly indicate that an animal of some species before unknown had been captured. But it is doubtful how much reliance can be placed on the description of the animal. Mr. Gosse, commenting upon the case, says that the fishermen cannot have been affected by fear in such sort that their imagination exaggerated the resemblance of the creature to the human form. “For the mermaid,” he says, “is not an object of terror to the fishermen; it is rather a welcome guest, and danger is to be apprehended only from its experiencing bad treatment.” But then this creature had not been treated as a specially welcome guest. The crew had captured it; and probably not without some degree of violence; for though it offered no resistance it uttered a plaintive cry. And that hook which “had accidentally fastened in the body” has a very suspicious look. If the animal could have given its own account of the capture, probably the hook would not have been found to have fastened in the body altogether by accident. Be this as it may, the fishermen were so far frightened that superstition got the better of curiosity; so that, as they were evidently very foolish fellows, their evidence is scarcely worth much. There are, however, only two points in their narrative which do not seem easily reconciled with the belief that they had captured a rather young female of a species closely allied to the common seal—the distinct unwebbed fingers and the small arms folded across the breast. Other points in their description suggest marked differences in degree from the usual characteristics of the female seal; but these two alone seem to differ absolutely in kind. Considering all the circumstances of the narrative, we may perhaps agree with Mr. Gosse to this extent, that, combined with other statements, the story induces a strong suspicion that the northern seas may hold forms of life as yet uncatalogued by science.

The stories which have been related about monstrous cuttle-fish have only been fabulous in regard to the dimensions which they have attributed to these creatures. Even in this respect it has been shown, quite recently, that some of the accounts formerly regarded as fabulous fell even short of the truth. Pliny relates, for instance, that the body of a monstrous cuttle-fish, of a kind known on the Spanish coast, weighed, when captured, 700 lbs., the head the same, the arms being 30 feet in length. The entire weight would probably have amounted to about 2000 lbs. But we shall presently see that this weight has been largely exceeded by modern specimens. It was, however, in the Middle Ages that the really fabulous cuttle-fish flourished—the gigantic kraken, “liker an island than an animal,” according to credulous Bishop Pontoppidan, and able to destroy in its mighty arms the largest galleons and war ships of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

It is natural that animals really monstrous should be magnified by the fears of those who have seen or encountered them, and still further magnified afterwards by tradition. Some specimens of cuttle-fish which have been captured wholly, or in part, indicate that this creature sometimes attains such dimensions that but little magnifying would be needed to suggest even the tremendous proportions of the fabulous kraken. In 1861, the French war-steamer _Alecton_ encountered a monstrous cuttle, on the surface of the sea, about 120 miles north-east of Teneriffe. The crew succeeded in slipping a noose round the body, but unfortunately the rope slipped, and, being arrested by the tail fin, pulled off the tail. This was hauled on board, and found to weigh over 40 lbs. From a drawing of the animal, the total length without the arms was estimated at 50 feet, and the weight at 4000 lbs., nearly twice the weight of Pliny’s monstrous cuttle-fish, long regarded as fabulous. In one respect this creature seems to have been imperfect, the two long arms usually possessed by cuttle-fish of the kind being wanting. Probably it had lost these long tentacles in a recent encounter with some sea enemy, perhaps one of its own species. Quite possibly it may have been such recent mutilation which exposed this cuttle-fish to successful attack by the crew of the _Alecton_.

A cuttle-fish of about the same dimensions was encountered by two fishermen in 1873, in Conception Bay, Newfoundland. When they attacked it, the creature threw its long arms across the boat, but the fishermen with an axe cut off these tentacles, on which the cephalopod withdrew in some haste. One of the arms was preserved, after it had lost about 6 feet of its length. Even thus reduced it measured 19 feet; and as the fishermen estimate that the arm was struck off about 10 feet from the body, it follows that the entire length of the limb must have been about 35 feet. They estimated the body at 60 feet in length and 5 feet in diameter—a monstrous creature! It was fortunate for these fishermen that they had an axe handy for its obtrusive tentacles, as with so great a mass and the great propulsive power possessed by all cephalopods, it might readily have upset their small boat. Once in the water, they would have been at the creature’s mercy—a quality which, by all accounts, the cuttle-fish does not possess to any remarkable extent.

Turn we, however, from the half fabulous woman-fish, and the exaggeratedly monstrous cuttle-fish, to the famous sea-serpent, held by many to be the most utterly fabulous of all fabled creatures, while a few, including some naturalists of distinction, stoutly maintain that the creature has a real existence, though whether it be rightly called a sea-serpent or not is a point about which even believers are extremely doubtful.

It may be well, in the first place, to remark that in weighing the evidence for and against the existence of this creature, and bearing on the question of its nature (if its existence be admitted), we ought not to be influenced by the manifest falsity of a number of stories relating to supposed encounters with this animal. It is probable that, but for these absurd stories, the well-authenticated narratives relating to the creature, whatever it may be, which has been called the sea-serpent, would have received much more attention than has heretofore been given to them. It is also possible that some narratives would have been published which have been kept back from the fear lest a truthful (though possibly mistaken) account should be classed with the undoubted untruths which have been told respecting the great sea-serpent. It cannot be denied that in the main the inventions and hoaxes about the sea-serpent have come chiefly from American sources. It is unfortunately supposed by too many of the less cultured sons of America that (to use Mr. Gosse’s expression) “there is somewhat of wit in gross exaggerations or hoaxing inventions.” Of course an American gentleman—using the word “in that sense in which every man may be a gentleman,” as Twemlow hath it—would as soon think of uttering a base coin as a deliberate untruth or foolish hoax. But it is thought clever, by not a few in America who know no better, to take any one in by an invention. Some, perhaps but a small number, of the newspapers set a specially bad example in this respect, giving room in their columns for pretended discoveries in various departments of science, elaborate accounts of newly discovered animals, living or extinct, and other untruths which would be regarded as very disgraceful indeed by English editors. Such was the famous “lunar hoax,” published in the New York _Sun_ some forty years ago; such the narrative, in 1873, of a monstrous fissure which had been discerned in the body of the moon, and threatened to increase until the moon should be cloven into two unequal parts; such the fables which have from time to time appeared respecting the sea-serpent. But it would be as unreasonable to reject, because of these last-named fables, the narratives which have been related by quiet, truth-loving folk, and have borne close and careful scrutiny, as it would be to reject the evidence given by the spectroscope respecting the existence of iron and other metals in the sun because an absurd story had told how creatures in the moon had been observed to make use of metal utensils or to adorn the roofs of their temples with metallic imitations of wreathed flames.

The oldest accounts on record of the appearance of a great sea creature resembling a serpent are those quoted by Bishop Pontoppidan, in his description of the natural history of his native country, Norway. Amongst these was one confirmed by oath taken before a magistrate by two of the crew of a ship commanded by Captain de Ferry, of the Norwegian navy. The captain and eight men saw the animal, near Molde, in August, 1747. They described it as of the general form of a serpent, stretched on the surface in receding coils (meaning, probably, the shape assumed by the neck of a swan when the head is drawn back). The head, which resembled that of a horse, was raised two feet above the water.

In August, 1817, a large marine animal, supposed to be a serpent, was seen near Cape Ann, Massachusetts. Eleven witnesses of good reputation gave evidence on oath before magistrates. One of these magistrates had himself seen the creature, and corroborated the most important points of the evidence given by the eleven witnesses. The creature had the appearance of a serpent, dark brown in colour (some said mottled), with white under the head and neck. Its length was estimated at from 50 to 100 feet. The head was in shape like a serpent’s, but as large as a horse’s. No mane was noticed. Five of the witnesses deposed to protuberances on the back; four said the back was straight; the other two gave no opinion on this point. The magistrate who had seen the animal considered the appearance of protuberances was due to the bendings of the body while in rapid motion.

In 1848, when the captain of the British frigate _Dædalus_ had published an account of a similar animal seen by him and several of his officers and crew, the Hon. Colonel T. H. Perkins, of Boston, who had seen the animal on the occasion just mentioned in 1817, gave an account (copied from a letter written in 1820) of what he had witnessed. It is needless to quote those points which correspond with what has been already stated. Colonel Perkins noticed “an appearance in the front of the head like a single horn, about nine inches to a foot in length, shaped like a marlinspike, which will presently be explained. I left the place,” he proceeds, “fully satisfied that the reports in circulation, though differing in details, were essentially correct.” He relates how a person named Mansfield, “one of the most respectable inhabitants of the town, who had been such an unbeliever in the existence of this monster that he had not given himself the trouble to go from his house to the harbour when the report was first made,” saw the animal from a bank overlooking the harbour. Mr. Mansfield and his wife agreed in estimating the creature’s length at 100 feet. Several crews of coasting vessels saw the animal, _in some instances within a few yards_. “Captain Tappan,” proceeds Colonel Perkins, “a person well known to me, saw him with his head above water two or three feet, at times moving with great rapidity, at others slowly. He also saw what explained the appearance which I have described of a horn on the front of the head. This was doubtless what was observed by Captain Tappan to be the tongue, thrown in an upright position from the mouth, and having the appearance which I have given to it. One of the revenue cutters, whilst in the neighbourhood of Cape Ann, had an excellent view of him at a few yards’ distance; he moved slowly, and upon the appearance of the vessel sank and was seen no more.”

Fifteen years later, in May 1833, five British officers—Captain Sullivan, Lieutenants Maclachlan and Malcolm of the Rifle Brigade, Lieutenant Lyster of the Artillery, and Mr. Snee of the Ordnance—when cruising in a small yacht off Margaret’s Bay, not far from Halifax, “saw the head and neck of some denizen of the deep, precisely like those of a common snake, in the act of swimming, the head so elevated and thrown forward by the curve of the neck as to enable us to see the water under and beyond it.” They judged its length to exceed 80 feet. “There could be no mistake nor delusion, and we were all perfectly satisfied that we had been favoured with a view of the ‘true and veritable sea-serpent,’ which had been generally considered to have existed only in the brain of some Yankee skipper, and treated as a tale not entitled to belief.” Dowling, a man-of-war’s man they had along with them, made the following unscientific but noteworthy comment: “Well, I’ve sailed in all parts of the world, and have seen rum sights too in my time, but this is the queerest thing I ever see.” “And surely,” adds Captain Sullivan, “Jack Dowling was right.” The description of the animal agrees in all essential respects with previous accounts, but the head was estimated at about six feet in length—considerably larger, therefore, than a horse’s head.

But unquestionably the account of the sea-serpent which has commanded most attention was that given by the captain, officers, and crew of the British frigate _Dædalus_, Captain M’Quhæ, in 1848. The _Times_ published on October 9, 1848, a paragraph stating that the sea-serpent had been seen by the captain and most of the officers and crew of this ship, on her passage home from the East Indies. The Admiralty inquired at once into the truth of the statement, and the following is abridged from Captain M’Quhæ’s official reply, addressed to Admiral Sir W. H. Gage.

“Sir,—In reply to your letter, requiring information as to the truth of a statement published in the _Times_ newspaper, of a sea-serpent of extraordinary dimensions having been seen from the _Dædalus_, I have the honour to inform you that at 5 p.m., August 6 last, in latitude 24° 44´ S., longitude 9° 22´ E., the weather dark and cloudy, wind fresh from N.W., with long ocean swell from S.W., the ship on the port tack, heading N.E. by N., Mr. Sartoris, midshipman, reported to Lieutenant E. Drummond (with whom, and Mr. W. Barrett, the master, I was walking the quarter-deck) something very unusual rapidly approaching the ship from before the beam. The object was seen to be an enormous serpent, with head and shoulders kept about four feet constantly above the surface of the sea, as nearly as we could judge; at least 60 feet of the animal was on the surface, no part of which length was used, so far as we could see, in propelling the animal either by vertical or horizontal undulation. It passed quietly, _but so closely under our lee quarter that, had it been a man of my acquaintance, I should easily have recognized his features with the naked eye_. It did not, while visible, deviate from its course to the S.W., which it held on at the pace of from 12 to 15 miles per hour, as if on some determined purpose. The diameter of the serpent was from 15 to 16 inches behind the head, which was, without any doubt, that of a snake. Its colour was a dark brown, with yellowish white about the throat. It did not once, while within the range of view from our glasses, sink below the surface. It had no fins, but something like the mane of a horse, or rather a bunch of sea-weed, washed about its back. It was seen by the quarter-master, the boatswain’s mate, and the man at the wheel, in addition to myself and the officers above-mentioned. I am having a drawing of the serpent made from a sketch taken immediately after it was seen, which I hope to have ready for my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty by to-morrow’s post.—Peter M’Quhæ, Captain.”

The drawing here mentioned was published in the _Illustrated London News_ for October 28, 1848, being there described as made “under the supervision of Captain M’Quhæ, and his approval of the authenticity of the details as to position and form.”

The correspondence and controversy elicited by the statement of Captain M’Quhæ were exceedingly interesting. It is noteworthy, at the outset, that few, perhaps none, who had read the original statement, suggested the idea of illusion, while it need hardly perhaps be said that no one expressed the slightest doubt as to the _bona fides_ of Captain M’Quhæ and his fellow-witnesses. These points deserve attention, because, in recent times, the subject of the sea-serpent has been frequently mentioned in public journals and elsewhere as though no accounts of the creature had ever been given which had been entitled to credence. I proceed to summarise the correspondence which followed M’Quhæ’s announcement. The full particulars will be found in Mr. Gosse’s interesting work, the “Romance of Natural History,” where, however, as it seems to me, the full force of the evidence is a little weakened, for all save naturalists, by the introduction of particulars not bearing directly on the questions at issue.

Among the earliest communications was one from Mr. J. D. M. Stirling, a gentleman who, during a long residence in Norway, had heard repeated accounts of the sea-serpent in Norwegian seas, and had himself seen a fish or reptile at a distance of a quarter of a mile, which, examined through a telescope, corresponded in appearance with the sea-serpent as usually described. This communication was chiefly interesting, however, as advancing the theory that the supposed sea-serpent is not a serpent at all, but a long-necked plesiosaurian. This idea had been advanced earlier, but without his knowledge, by Mr. E. Newman, the editor of the _Zoologist_. Let us briefly inquire into the circumstances which suggest the belief.

If we consider the usual account of the sea-serpent, we find one constant feature, which seems entirely inconsistent with the belief that the creature can be a serpent. The animal has always shown a large portion of its length, from 20 to 60 feet, above the surface of the water, and without any evident signs of undulation, either vertically or horizontally. Now, apart from all zoological evidence, our knowledge of physical laws will not permit us to believe that the portion thus visible above the surface was propelled by the undulations of a portion concealed below the surface, unless this latter portion largely exceeded the former in bulk. A true fish does not swim for any length of time with any but a very small portion of its body above water; probably large eels never show even a head or fin above water for more than a few seconds when not at rest. Cetaceans, owing to the layers of blubber which float them up, remain often for a long time with a portion of their bulk out of the water, and the larger sort often swim long distances with the head and fore-part out of water. But, even then, the greater part of the creature’s bulk is under water, and the driving apparatus, the anterior fins and the mighty tail, are constantly under water (when the animal is urging its way horizontally, be it understood). A sea creature, in fact, whatever its nature, which keeps any considerable volume of its body out of water constantly, while travelling a long distance, must of necessity have a much greater volume all the time under water, and must have its propelling apparatus under water. Moreover, if the propulsion is not effected by fins, paddles, a great flat tail, or these combined, but by the undulations of the animal’s own body, then the part out of water must of necessity be affected by these undulations, unless it is very small in volume and length compared with the part under water. I assert both these points as matters depending on physical laws, and without fear that the best-informed zoologist can adduce any instances to the contrary. It is in fact physically impossible that such instances should exist.

It would not be saying too much to assert that if the so-called sea-serpent were really a serpent, its entire length must be nearer 1000 than 100 feet. This, of course, is utterly incredible. We are, therefore, forced to the belief that the creature is not a serpent. If it were a long-necked reptile, with a concealed body much bulkier than the neck, the requirements of floatation would be satisfied; if to that body there were attached powerful paddles, the requirements of propulsion would be satisfied. The theory, then, suggested, first by Mr. Newman, later but independently by Mr. Stirling, and advocated since by several naturalists of repute, is simply that the so-called sea-serpent is a modern representative of the long-necked plesiosaurian reptile to which has been given the name of the _enaliosaurus_. Creatures of this kind prevailed in that era when what is called the lias was formed, a fossiliferous stratum belonging to the secondary or mesozoic rocks. They are not found in the later or tertiary rocks, and thereon an argument might be deduced against their possible existence in the present, or post-tertiary, period; but, as will presently be shown, this argument is far from being conclusive. The enaliosaurian reptiles were “extraordinary,” says Lyell, “for their number, size, and structure.” Like the ichthyosauri, or fish-lizards, the enaliosauri (or serpent-turtles, as they might almost be called) were carnivorous, their skeletons often enclosing the fossilized remains of half-digested fishes. They had extremely long necks, with heads very small compared with the body. They are supposed to have lived chiefly in narrow seas and estuaries, and to have breathed air like the modern whales and other aquatic mammals. Some of them were of formidable dimensions, though none of the skeletons yet discovered indicate a length of more than 35 feet. It is not, however, at all likely that the few skeletons known indicate the full size attained by these creatures. Probably, indeed, we have the remains of only a few out of many species, and some species existing in the mesozoic period may have as largely exceeded those whose skeletons have been found, as the boa-constrictor exceeds the common ringed snake. It is also altogether probable that in the struggle for existence during which the enaliosaurian reptiles have become _almost_ extinct (according to the hypothesis we are considering), none but the largest and strongest had any chance, in which case the present representatives of the family would largely exceed in bulk their progenitors of the mesozoic period.

A writer in the _Times_ of November 2, 1848, under the signature F. G. S., pointed out how many of the external characters of the creature seen from the _Dædalus_ corresponded with the belief that it was a long-necked plesiosaurus. “Geologists,” he said, “are agreed in the inference that the plesiosauri carried their necks, which must have resembled the bodies of serpents, above the water, while their propulsion was effected by large paddles working beneath, the short but stout tail acting the part of a rudder.... In the letter and drawing of Captain M’Quhæ ... we have ... the short head, the serpent-like neck, carried several feet above the water. Even the bristly mane in certain parts of the back, so unlike anything found in serpents, has its analogue in the iguana, to which animal the plesiosaurus has been compared by some geologists. But I would most of all insist upon the peculiarity of the animal’s progression, which could only have been effected with the evenness and at the rate described by an apparatus of fins or paddles, not possessed by serpents, but existing in the highest perfection in the plesiosaurus.”