Sea monsters
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Texts printed in italics and bold face or spaced in the source document have been transcribed between _underscores_, =equal signs= and ~tildes~ respectively. Superscript x is re...
2. Part 21817, Aug. 20.--Extract from a letter from =S. G. Perkins=, Esq. dated Boston, Aug. 20, 1817, to =E. Everett=, in Paris.--(This extract, a manuscript, preserved in the Library o...
3. Part 3But suddenly the newspapers spread the rumour of a Sea-Serpent having been seen by Captain So and So, of the Royal Navy, and by the master, several midshipmen, and some men of t...
4. Part 4“It appears that our large lakes have huge serpents or fishes, as well as the sea. On the 3d. of July, 1817, one was seen in Lake Erie, three miles from land, by the crew of a s...
5. Part 5A little notice on this imposture was written by the New York correspondent in the _Cincinnati Gazette_ which, translated into German, appeared in FRORIEP’S _Neue Notizen_ of Fe...
6. Part 6“There was something that struck me as unsatisfactory about several parts of this highly exciting narrative. One o’clock in the morning, and without the assistance of a moon, wa...
7. Part 7“It is impossible for any story to read more like a hoax than this, but I had ready means of procuring, through a friend at Lloyd’s, the information that there is such a ship as...
8. Part 8“Compeared Thomas Fotheringhame, house-carpenter in Kirkwall; who solemnly declared, That being in Stronsa during the gales of wind in October last; he went to see the strange f...
9. Part 9“The smallness of the cervical vertebrae, in the animal of Stronsa, confirms the account of those who saw it, that the animal had a neck. But the Squalus maximus, if Mr. Home’s...
10. Part 10“They were men of such honour, intelligence, and probity, that I can have no doubt of the correctness of any statement they made of their impressions of what they had so careful...
11. Part 11“I am told by a gentleman whose brother was on board the ship (the Barham) referred in the following extract from “The Times” newspaper of November 17, 1852, that the occurrence...
12. Part 12“They who, either to trade, or to fish, sail along the shores of Norway, relate with concurring evidence a truly admirable story, namely that a very large serpent of a length of...
13. Part 13From what has been said of the animal, seen by EGEDE, we gather that it appeared on the 6th. of July, 1734, in fine weather before the Danish Colony the Good Hope, Davis Straits...
14. Part 14“The sea-serpent, serpens marinus, by some people also called Aale Tust, is the second wonderful and frightful sea-monster which ought to be studied by him who looks with deligh...
15. Part 15“The Finmark Sea also produces the hydra or sea-serpent, a huge monster, forty “passus” long, with a head resembling in size that of large sea-fishes, in shape that of a snake....
16. Part 16“As one object of the Academy is to notice and preserve discoveries in _Natural History_, I am induced to communicate to the society the following account of a _Sea-Serpent_, wh...
17. Part 17As to the pieces of flesh, I am convinced that they are not of a sea-serpent, but either of sea-lions, of porpoises, or of another smaller kind of whales, which are the rests of...
18. Part 18We read here that the underpart of the head appeared almost white, and several feet of its belly too (read of the underpart of its neck, or of its throat). Further Mr. GAFFNEY g...
19. Part 19“In a few moments after my exclamation, I saw on the opposite side of the harbour, at about two miles distance from where I had first seen, or thought I saw, the snake, the same...
20. Part 20Poor Committee! Could they have foreseen that _seventy_ years afterwards the existence of the sea-serpent was _not_ beyond a doubt, at least among learned persons, they would no...
21. Part 21We observe that Mr. RAFINESQUE gives here some characters to the Massachusetts’s Sea-Serpent, with which we have met nowhere else, apparently only for the purpose of rendering h...
22. Part 22“My first object was the Head, which I satisfied myself was serpent shaped, it was elevated about two feet from the water, and he depressed it gradually, to within six or eight...
23. Part 23“For a length of time the most extraordinary accounts were circulated relating to it, till at last the whole story was generally considered as the fabric of American invention;...
24. Part 24“The naturalist, however, whose views of creation are bounded by no country, and whose field of inquiry is the globe itself, sees with admiration though without surprise the ric...
25. Part 25“To us it seems a matter of surprise, that any person who has examined the testimony, can doubt the existence of the Sea-Serpent; the documents communicated by Dr. Bigelow of Bo...
26. Part 26“The last notice we have seen of this American animal bears date July 1833. The Boston and New-York papers of that date state, that the Sea-Serpent had again appeared off Nahant...
27. Part 27“If one” Mr. RATHKE goes on, “were to submit the above mentioned evidences to an inquiry, one would soon observe, that they not only contain several contradictory statements, bu...
28. Part 28I have no reason to doubt Mr. NEWMAN’s veracity, and so I am willing to believe that the five reports which follow this introduction “are quoted from one of” the British “daily...
29. Part 29“The sketch (this was a reduced copy of the drawing of the head of the animal seen by Captain M’QUHAE; attached to the submerged body of a large seal, showing the long eddy prod...
30. Part 30“Captain M’Quhae estimates the length of its body at the surface of the water, “_à fleur d’eau_, at the very least equal to sixty feet, no part of which was to our perception us...
31. Part 31Evidently the animal remained under water for a long time, and struck the vessel in coming to the surface. Seen from very near the colour evidently did not seem dark brown, but...
32. Part 32Nobody can help laughing when he sees this figure, representing something very much like a black buoy, with white streaks and spots, and glittering in the sun, having a long rop...
33. Part 33“On a Sunday afternoon, in the middle of August, above a hundred persons, at that time in and about the hotel, were called on to observe an extraordinary appearance in the sea,...
34. Part 34“Captain Drevar, of the barque _Pauline_, bound with coals for her Majesty’s naval stores at Zanzibar, when in lat. 5 deg. 13 min. S., long. 35 deg. W., on July 8 last, observed...
35. Part 35On that day another or the same individual was seen again shooting itself along the surface horizontally, forty feet of its body being out of the water at a time. Consequently t...
36. Part 36We will first speak of the account Lieutenant HAYNES wrote on the 6th. of June, when at Gibraltar. The sea was perfectly smooth, and he saw the ridge of fins. He took his glasse...
37. Part 37“Busselton is a little seaport about 150 miles south of Fremantle, on the west coast of Australia, situated on the shore of Geographe Bay, which is sheltered by Cape Naturaliste...
38. Part 38“But, for the information from which those authors have drawn their inferences, and on which they have founded their opinions, they have been greatly indebted, as must be all wh...
39. Part 39“Before ending the history of the interesting beings of which I have treated, I cannot help saying a few words about an animal, observed through centuries by many people of all...
40. Part 40“The only group of animals to which our attention may be specially directed with the view of finding a zoological solution of the problem, is that of the _Vertebrata_,--the high...
41. Part 41“To which group of known animals, however, this being belongs, cannot of course be asserted with any certainty. The supposition, however, is very near, that it is closely relate...
42. Part 42I am obliged to make a few notes or observations on this paper. The account, namely, of which Mr. COGSWELL speaks in the beginning of his “Plea”, which arrested his attention, b...
43. Part 43Mr. NEWMAN, the Editor of the _Zoologist_, too, could not forego the pleasure to publish a second time his favourite explanation of the _Enaliosaurians_. In the Preface to the y...
44. Part 44“It is true the _Iguana_ is not an _Iguanodon_; but the forms are closely allied. I do not suppose that the so-called sea-serpent is an actual _Plesiosaur_, but an animal bearin...
45. Part 45“P. S. Since sending to you the above I have again seen my relative, and find that the cut in the _Graphic_ of July 19, 1879, is not that of the instance observed from the steam...
46. Part 46“The earlier of these characters are those “of the head of a warm-blooded mammal; none of them those of a cold-blooded reptile or fish”. The comparison of the dimly-seen somethi...
47. Part 47“That a long and connected string of sea-weed, extending for some fifty or sixty feet along the surface of a sea, slightly disturbed by a rippling breeze, may be moved by the wa...
48. Part 48“But for an opera-glass, probably all our party on board the _Rangoon_ would have been personal witnesses to the existence of a great sea-serpent, but, alas for romance! one gla...
49. Part 49“I need scarcely point out how utterly irreconcileable is the proverbially smooth, gliding motion of a serpent, with the supposition of its passage through the water causing suc...
50. Part 50121.--1849, February 18.--Off the south point of Cumberland Island, about twelve miles from the St. John’s bar, Florida.--Captain ADAMS, of the schooner _Lucy and Nancy_, and th...
51. Part 51As to the _breadth of the head_, some observers mention its diameter, and some its circumference, or they compare its thickness either with that of the neck, with that of the tr...
52. Part 52Of the _whiskers_ PONTOPPIDAN already tells us that on the sides of the nostrils there are a few stiff hairs or bristles, as other animals have, with a good nose (p. 130). These...
53. Part 531. _Relative mobility of organs._ We have already mentioned that the eyes, like the nostrils and the mouth, may be shut or opened wide. Yet they do not seem to be very movable (...
54. Part 54So we have gradually approached to the way in which the animal disappears from the surface of the vaste ocean. In some instances it is only said that “it disappeared” (36), “it...
55. Part 55Along the coasts of Norway they appear only “at certain times” (2) i. e. evidently “in the dog days” (92, p. 138), viz. from the 23th. of July to the 23th. of August, and when w...
56. Part 56Well, let us stop here, and say that there are many wonders still hidden in the sea, and that there will be always a chance that of every species of animals individuals will be...
57. Part 57Some of these _long-tailed ancestors of the fin-tailed otter_ which in their migration had reached the sea-shore, probably by following the course of rivers, began to accustom t...
58. Part 58Firstly:--With a horizontal dotted line I have separated the still living animals or groups from those who have become extinct; the former are placed above, the latter beneath t...
59. Part 59“As evening fell, a breeze sprang up, and we reached Loch Hourn Head early next morning. After paying a visit to the Barrasdale oyster beds, we set sail for home in the afternoo...
60. Part 60“It was about 6.30 on Saturday morning last, August 1st. It was a bright clear morning with the sun shining brightly. The weather, however, was rough, with a heavy sea. I had ju...