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 who have seriously to consider this subject, to the late experienced editor of the _Zoologist_, Mr. Edward Newman, a man of wonderful power of mind, of great judgment, a profound thinker, and an able writer. At a time when, as he said, “the shafts of ridicule were launched against believers and unbelievers in the sea-serpent in a very pleasing and impartial manner”, he, in the true spirit of philosophical inquiry, in 1847, opened the columns of his magazine to correspondence on this topic, and all the more recent reports of marine monsters having been seen are therein recorded. To him, therefore, the fullest acknowledgements are due.”
I too am under obligations to Mr. NEWMAN, as to one who has collected so many reports of the sea-serpent and published them in his journal, but I fail to see in him what Mr. LEE asserts him to be.
As to the contents of Mr. LEE’S “Great Sea-Serpent”, the second part of his _Sea-Monsters Unmasked_, I may be allowed to note the following.
First he mentions the various great snakes of antiquity and believes them to be merely boas (read pythons) and real sea-snakes. Next he represents a figure, found on a sarcophagus or coffin in the Catacombs of Rome, and tells us that it corresponds in many respects with some of the descriptions of the sea-serpent given several centuries afterwards. I, however, don’t observe any resemblance in them. I consider this monster as a singular combination of a horse and a fish, badly drawn, as one of the representations of those wonderful ideas or beliefs of antiquity concerning the existence of such monsters as sirens, tritons, the minotaurus, etc.
Further he treats of OLAUS MAGNUS, Bishop PONTOPPIDAN, HANS EGEDE, the Animal of Stronsa, and of various reports of the sea-serpent, and it is obviously a favoured idea of his that the sea-serpent is only to be accounted for by a great calamary; to prove this, he makes himself guilty of all kinds of misrepresentations and improbabilities; he considers every one as having been the dupe of optical deceptions, or as having made exaggerations, and their observations to be “full of error and mistakes”! And he who has never seen a sea-serpent, but sits pen in hand in his chair at his desk, knows it best of all: all sea-serpents were calamaries, except a very few, which were a row of porpoises! But the more Mr. LEE has to deal with more recent reports, the less he is able to explain the various sea-serpents by reference to his favoured calamary. Of the animals seen in the Harbour of Gloucester in 1817 he says: “Of this I can offer no zoological explanation”. He neither gives an explanation of the sea-serpent seen in 1833 by British officers (n^o. 97), nor of that in Lochourn (n^o. 137, 138, 139, 140). Then he says: “Many other accounts have been published of the appearance of serpent-like sea-monsters, but I have only space for two or three more of the most remarkable of them”. Truly, an easy way to get rid of them! One of these two or three more remarkable reports is the fight between the whale and the sea-serpent (n^o. 144) of which he proposes several explanations (I beg to refer the readers to that account), ending with the words: “it must be left for further elucidation”. The sea-serpent of the _City of Baltimore_ (n^o. 149) was misunderstood by him. He compares the _splash of the water_, caused by the animal’s dropping its neck like a log of wood into it, with the _caudal fins of a calamary_ (just imagine!) but ends: “but, as one with a bull-dog expression of eye-brow, visible at 500 yards distance, does not come within my ken, I will not claim it as much.” And of the animal of the _Osborne_ he says:
“It seems to me that this description cannot be explained as applicable to any one animal yet known. The ridge of dorsal fins might, possibly, as was suggested by Mr. FRANK BUCKLAND, belong to four basking sharks, swimming in line, in close order; but the combination of them with long flippers, and turtle-like mode of swimming, forms a zoological enigma which I am unable to solve.”
Nevertheless, in answering the question: “To which of the recognized class of created beings can this huge rover of the ocean be referred?” he says: “I reply: To the Cephalopoda” (i. e. calamaries). Such a contradiction I do not understand.
And notwithstanding his cherished great-calamary-hypothesis, and after having said some words about Mr. NEWMAN’s Plesiosaurus theory and Mr. WILSON’s ideas of the extraordinary development of snakes, he ends his work with the following conclusions:
“I arrive, then, at the following conclusions: 1st. That, without straining resemblances, or casting a doubt upon narratives not proved to be erroneous, the various appearances of the supposed “Great Sea-Serpent” may now be nearly all accounted for by the forms and habits of known animals; especially if we admit, as proposed by Dr. Andrew Wilson, that some of them, including the marine snakes, may, like the cuttles, attain to an extraordinary size.”
“2nd. That to assume that naturalists have perfect cognizance of every existing marine animal of large size, would be quite unwarrantable. It appears to me more than probable that many marine animals, unknown to science, and some of them of gigantic size, may have their ordinary habitat in the great depths of the sea, and only occasionally come to the surface; and I think it not impossible that amongst them may be marine snakes of greater dimensions than we are aware of, and even a creature having close affinities with the old sea-reptiles whose fossil skeletons tell of their magnitude and abundance in past ages.”
I am unable to follow out such a reasoning.
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=156=.--1883, October 15?--The _Graphic_ of 20th. October, 1883, mentions, p. 387:
“The inevitable sea-serpent has turned up again. This time he has been seen going down the Bristol Channel towards the Atlantic at the rate of twenty-five miles per hour, and afterwards he was noticed off the north coast of Cornwall. The monster was about half a mile long, and left a greasy trail behind him.”
I have no doubt about the appearance of a sea-serpent in Bristol Channel, and a few hours or a day afterwards off the north coast of Cornwall, as several individuals have already been reported on the west coast of Great Britain. The greasy trail left behind it is not an improbability, but the length of half a mile is most probably an invention of the incredulous Editor of the Graphic!
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Mr. C. HONIGH in his _Reisschetsen uit Noorwegen_ in _de Gids_ for 1884, p. 300 speaking of strange and violent motions in the water of the lake of Mjösen in Norway during perfectly calm weather tells us as a specimen of Norwegian superstition:
“People ascribe these motions to sea-serpents, in which many persons in Norway firmly believe upon the authority of undeniable witnesses and their observations. One of the most famous of these monsters lived some centuries ago in the lake of Mjösen, in the neighbourhood of Hamar, where it became entangled in the shallow. A monk killed it with arrow-shots in its eye, and the monster then floated to near the “Holy-Isle” to a place which is still called “Pilestöa”. And yet there is still a sea-serpent in the lake, which has coiled itself round the great bell of Hamar, which in the time of the seven years’ war was lowered to the bottom.”
Mr. HONIGH adds:
“After all I heard and saw at Bergen, I don’t doubt in the least that in the Atlantic and on the coasts of Norway really appear from time to time immensely large mammals of the seal-kind, known by the name of “great sea-serpent”, though I therefore don’t admit all fabulous tales about it.”
The words “mammals of the seal-kind” are explained by the following circumstance. In November, 1881, appeared from my pen, then a student’s pen, a little article on the sea-serpent, in which I tried to show that a sea-serpent is a yet undescribed long marine animal, closely allied to the pinnipeds, with a long neck and a long tail. Mr. HONIGH, in preparing his paper for the _Gids_ requested me to let him have a copy of my article, which I sent him, and he evidently accepted my supposition.
In a letter Mr. HONIGH tells me:
“In the literature of the Norwegians the sea-serpent or soe-orm is repeatedly mentioned, and in such an indisputable manner, that in my opinion there is no doubt of its existence.”
“On my return I learned from a gentleman of Bergen, that some time ago there was a part of the skeleton of a sea-serpent in the Museum of Natural History of Bergen.”
Though I begged Mr. HONIGH, teacher at the National Agricultural School at Wageningen, to communicate to me further particulars about the sea-serpent and about its literature, learned by him on his travels through Norway, and repeated this my question in February 1889, I am still waiting for an answer.
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=157=.--1885, August 16.--(_Nature_ of September 10, 1885).
“It was hardly to be expected that the season should pass without the appearance of the sea-serpent somewhere, and if we are to believe the information forwarded to us from a correspondent in Norway, it has just visited the coast of Nordland. Three sundays ago some lads were returning to the Island of Röd from the church at Melö, in the middle of the day, when they saw far out in the fjord a streak in the sea which they believed to be a flock of wild ducks swimming. On proceeding further, however, they heard a whizzing as of a rushing fountain and in a few moments perceived a great sea-monster with great velocity making straight for the boat. It appeared to be serpentine in shape, with a flat scaly head, and the lads counted seventeen coils on the surface of the water just as it passed the stern of the boat so closely that they could have thrown a boathook into it. By subsequent measurements on land the length of the animal was estimated at about 200 feet. It pursued its course on the surface of the sea until close behind the boat when it went down with a tremendous noise, but reappeared a little after, shaping its course for the Melö, where it disappeared from view. Naturally, the lads were greatly frightened. The weather at the time was hot, calm, and sunny. Our informer states that the lads are intelligent and truthful, and that there is no reason to discredit their unanimous statement, made, as it were, in a terribly frightened condition. It might be added that the waters in which the animal was seen are some of the deepest on the Norwegian coast, and that it is not the first time fishermen have averred having seen the sea-serpent here. The existence of the sea-serpent is fully believed in along the coast of Norway.”
The sea-serpent in its rapid motion made, as is often stated, the water curl before its throat, which rushing sound was distinctly heard by the lads. Notwithstanding their great fright they yet saw the head was flat, but they were mistaken as to its being scaly. Moreover the account is unvarnished and the description of the animal’s motions is correct.
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Mr. W. E. HOYLE, busy on the article “Sea-Serpent” for the 9th. Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, published in 1886 (June?) a number of titles of books and journals, which came in his way while studying the subject. This bibliography contains 89 numbers. They were printed, as the author says: “in the hope that they might be the means of saving time and labor on the part of others”. Alas, his hope has not been realized on my part, for I had nearly finished my work when I happened to find Mr. HOYLE’s paper quoted in the decennial Register of the _Zoologischer Anzeiger_. Only 25 of the numbers published by Mr. HOYLE were new additions to my “Literature on the subject”, and I could consult only three of them, amongst which Mr. HOYLE’s article “Sea-Serpent” in the _Encyclopedia Britannica_ quoted above.
Though Mr. HOYLE states: “no satisfactory explanation has yet been given of certain descriptions of the sea-serpent”, among others of “the huge snake seen by certain of the crew of the Pauline” (n^o. 144, 145) and of “Lieutenant Hayne’s account” (n^o. 148), and though he ends his article with the words: “It would thus appear that, while, with very few exceptions, all the so-called sea-serpents can be explained by reference to some well-known animal or other natural object, there is still a residuum sufficient to prevent modern zoologists from denying the possibility that some such creature may after all exist”, he himself was evidently taken in by the different persons who explained the sea-serpent by reference to the most impossible suppositions! He enumerates eight different explanations and seems fully to agree with them. It is evident that his only purpose was to satisfy the request of writing an article on the Sea-Serpent for an Encyclopedia.
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=158=.--1886, August.--In the _Graphic_ of September, 25, we read:
“The sea-serpent has now crossed the Atlantic, and has suddenly appeared near Kingston Point, on the Hudson. It was seen by two young men, who were rowing in a boat, and who, it seems, the monster fruitlessly chased. They describe the animal as growing furious, when it found them escaping. “It lashed the water with its tail, which seemed to be about seventy-five feet distance from its head. The head was as large and round as a flour-barrel; and its eyes of a greenish hue, looked “devilish”. Before resuming its journey up the Hudson, it squirted from its mouth a stream of foamy stuff resembling long shavings from a pine plank.”
I have no reason to consider this account as a hoax, though it almost reads like one. In the Norwegian accounts it is said that the sea-serpent very often follows boats. I have explained this by the animal’s curiosity, mixed with some fear. The young men may have observed the animal paddling with its hind flappers, a possible expression of some emotion, as I have also explained when speaking of the animal seen from the _Kiushiu Maru_ (n^o. 151), and they may have ascribed the foam to the lashing of its tail; or it really lashed its tail, as I also supposed on that occasion (n^o. 151). The length between head and tail estimated at seventy-five feet, is certainly not exaggerated. As the head is described round as a flour-barrel, it was evidently seen in its face. I refer to the animal of the _Osborne_ (n^o. 148) where the head seen from behind is also described and figured round as a bullet. Of the young men’s description that the eyes “looked devilish”, and also that of their colour being “of a greenish hue” I will only say that it is unique. The “stream of foamy stuff resembling long shavings from a pine plank” was of course nothing but a sudden exhalation, probably held for some time from curiosity and fear, and then suddenly sent forth. The locality where the sea-serpent appeared, may be apparently strange, it is, however, very well explicable, owing to the animal’s habit of frequenting shores, and to the habit of other pinnipeds of frequenting brackish water and even mouths of large rivers.--
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=159=.--1886, August?--In the same number of the _Graphic_ it says:
“The serpent was also seen by the captain of a steamer, who “gave it the right of way”.”
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=160=.--1886, August?--(On the same page):
“And yet another man (appropriately) named Jonah, who at first took the monster to be an immense tree floating with the tide--a notion which was quickly dispelled by the supposed tree throwing twenty feet of its length out of water.”
As the reader will remember, the comparison of the sea-serpent, swimming or lying on the surface, with a floating tree or log of wood, has been made more than once; evidently the animal raised its enormous neck for a moment out of water, to take a look-out.
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=161=.--1889, May.--In the _Haagsche Courant_ of June 6, of this year, I read:
“The sea-serpent has again appeared, and been seen by a captain sailing from Liverpool to Philadelphia, who hitherto obstinately refused to believe in its existence.”
Of course I immediately wrote to the Editor, begging him for the name of the journal, from which this statement had been taken. The Editor courteously answered that one of his correspondents had forwarded him a written copy of the account taken from the 38th. number of the _Grondwet_ of May 21st., of this year, published in Holland, Michigan, but the written copy had already disappeared in the paper-basket, and the correspondent requested to send the original, answered that he was unable to do so for the same reason.
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In the first days of December 1889, Mr. JOHN ASHTON published his _Curious Creatures in Zoology_. Pages 268-278 of his volume treat of the sea-serpent. The illustrations which accompany this part are: 1. A representation of a piece of sculpture on a wall of the Assyrian palace at Khorsabad, which as I believe, has nothing at all to do with the sea-serpent, but which is a bad drawing of a _Hydrophis_. 2. The drawing of GESNER (our fig. 16) twice reduced. 3. EGEDE’s sea-serpent, as it was published in PONTOPPIDAN (our fig. 22). 4. An eel-kind taken from ALDROVANDUS’ work, and 5. A reduced copy of Captain M’QUHAE’s sea-serpent (our fig. 28).--
Curious is Mr. ASHTON’s assertion, when speaking of the sea-serpent of Khorsabad-palace and of ARISTOTELES: “These ........ were doubtless marine snakes, which are still in existence, and are found in the Indian Ocean, but the larger ones seem to have been seen in more northern waters”. Consequently he believes, like Mr. ANDREW WILSON that the _Hydrophidae_ may develop gigantically and when in this condition make little trips from their common tropical residences to more northern latitudes!
Further he quotes OLAUS MAGNUS, GESNER, TOPSELL, ALDROVANDUS, PONTOPPIDAN, and EGEDE, but all by the way.
More space is devoted to the accounts of WALTER SCOTT, and to the observations of Mr. MACLEAN (n^o. 31), of a party of British officers (n^o. 97), of Lars JOHNÖEN (n^o. 92), of Captain M’QUHAE (n^o. 118), and of Lieutenant HAYNES (n^o. 148). All this, however, without giving the least explanation, and ending with these words:
“I think the verdict may be given that its existence although belonging to “Curious Zoology”, is not impossible, and can hardly be branded as a falsehood.”
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=162=.--1890, June.--_De Amsterdammer_, _Weekblad voor Nederland_, of July 12th. of this year, mentions:
“The sea-serpent again.--Captain David Tuits, of the British schooner _Anny Harper_, has been favoured with a sight of it, near Long Island, not far from the coast of Connecticut. He is a perfectly trustworthy gentleman, who hitherto has never believed in sea-serpents, but who has now seen one on a clear day; the tail which was coloured brown with black spots, was about forty feet out of the water. The captain estimates the total length of the monster at over one hundred feet.”
I think it not too bold to consider this report almost a duplicate of our n^o. 135. There the sea-serpent is called “a large snake about 100 feet long, of a dark brown colour, head and tail out of water, the body slightly under”. Most probably captain Tuits also saw only the head and the tail of the animal, and not the trunk. The tail is described here to be brown with black spots. It is evident that only the upper part of the tail was seen.
I immediately enquired of the Editor of the _Amsterdammer_ about the source of this article; he, however, promptly answered me that his correspondent did not remember from which of the five or six German newspapers daily read by him, he had copied it.--
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“To what class of known beings does this monster of the deep belong?” This question has caused various suppositions, to which we will turn our attention in the next chapter.--
V.
The various explanations hitherto given.
I have found the =first= explanation given about the Sea-Serpent in the _Report_ of the Committee of 1817, where we read an extract from a M. S. journal of the Rev. WILLIAM JENKS, which he communicated in a letter to the Hon. Judge DAVIS, and which letter is printed there. It runs as follows:
“A gentleman of intelligence (Rev. Alden Bradford of Wiscasset, now Secretary of the Commonwealth,) inquired of Mr. Cummings, whether the appearance might not be produced by =a number of porpoises=, =following each other= in a train.”
This passage from the private journal was written in Sept. 10, 1809; but after having consulted SILLIMAN’s _American Journal of Science and the Arts_, Vol. II, Boston 1819 (1820), we are convinced that Mr. BRADFORD’s inquiry of Mr. CUMMINGS took place before Aug. 1803.
Fig. 52 shows my readers a porpoise.
As we read in SCHLEGEL’s _Essai sur la physionomie des Serpens_, p. 517, note, PETER ASCANIUS in his _Icones rerum naturalium_ Cahier V, Copenhague, 1805, says:
“In summer porpoises approach the coasts and the fjords. They often meet in the open sea in troops of several scores, and when the weather is calm and fine, they range in a line after each other to play and to tumble: they then have the appearance of a chain of little eminences floating on the surface of the water; some fishermen of the North, seeing them at a great distance, took this resemblance for an immense animal and gave it the name of sea-serpent.”
Again in the letter from Mr. S. PERKINS to Mr. E. EVERETT, dated August 20, 1817, we read:
“All these facts, however, were loose, and from the variety of reports, people had gotten to doubt their foundation, and supposed it was only a number of porpuses following each other in rapid succession.”
For the fourth time we read in FRORIEP’S _Notizen_, Vol. XIX, p. 193:
“Christiania, September 5, 1827. Last week several persons saw large shoals of porpoises, and therefore uttered the supposition that the alleged presence of the sea-serpent was not right.”
Mr. MITCHILL’S paper, of 1828, which we have inserted _in toto_ in our Chapter on hoaxes, also ends with the supposition that the “gambols of porpoises” have given rise to all the tales of the sea-serpent.
SCHLEGEL in his _Essai sur la physionomie des Serpens_, La Haye, 1837, p. 105, in his chapter on Fables respecting snakes says:
“We are surprised to hear of a sea-serpent, monstrous in shape and size”,
and he refers to his chapter on true sea-snakes, the _Hydrophidae_. There p. 517 he ends his chapter with the following words: