Part 42

I 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, because of the particulars having been long since familiar to him by oral communication, is that of the party of British officers (n^o. 97).--That “other statement” is that made by Capt. D’ABNOUR (n^o. 106a).--I beg the reader to look over the above-mentioned passages.--Mr. COGSWELL had better done to omit his observation, that the account of the French sea-captain “was qualified with so much of the characteristic national precision in the detail of certain forms and measurements”. The reader himself will in most of the accounts of the sea-serpent, which fill this volume, have observed the same “precision in details” indifferently whether the account was recorded by a Norwegian, a German, an English, a French or an American witness.--His observation that the sea-serpent only occurs “in the North Atlantic no farther south than a line swerving from Norway in a southerly direction to Massachusetts” is incorrect, as the reader may already have observed himself. If he had read all the accounts of the sea-serpent up to his days, he would, of course, not have written this. The “deposition of Archdeacon DEINBOLT, zool. 1606” is of the 28th. of July, 1845 (n^o. 115). Mr. COGSWELL cites here the passage in which he will find “an appearance of paddles”. The reader will probably remember that there was no question of paddles, but of a boiling of the water, which the witnesses _thought_ to have been caused by a pair of fins nearest the head, and which I have explained in another way.--Mr. COGSWELL calls Mr. NEWMAN’S suggestion, that the sea-serpents may belong to the _Enaliosaurian_ type, “ingenious”. I think that the reader, after having read only the accounts of the sea-serpent up to the days of Mr. NEWMAN’S suggestion, i. e. up to 1847, will not be inclined to call this suggestion “ingenious”, with regard to the sea-serpent being so often reported as having a mane and whiskers, and swimming with vertical undulations. Moreover it is the question whether this suggestion was Mr. NEWMAN’S or Mr. RATHKE’S.

Mr. J. D. MORRIES STIRLING too, seemed to believe that the sea-serpents are allied to the extinct _Plesiosauri_, for he writes in a letter to Captain HAMILTON, R. N., Secretary to the Admiralty (See _Illustrated London News_ of 28th. October, 1848):

“There are I believe, several varieties of the reptile known as the sea-serpent but almost all the accounts agree as to the existence of a mane, and as to the great size of the eye. In several of the fossil reptiles somewhat approaching the sea-serpent in size and other characteristics, the orbit is very large; and in this respect, as well as having short paws or flappers, the description of the Northern sea-serpents agree with the supposed appearance of some of the antediluvian species. A great part of the disbelief in the existence of the sea-serpent has arisen from its being supposed to be the same animal as the kraken, or rather from the names having been used indiscriminately.”

Another gentleman, who signed his article in the _Times_ of November 2nd., 1848, with the initials F. G. S., came to the same suggestion. His letter will be found in its right place, after the statements of Captain M’QUHAE (n^o. 118).

Dr. COGSWELL who perhaps feared that in spite of his “Plea” the story of the sea-serpent was on a fair way to be forgotten, once more took the subject in hand, and sent a second paper to the _Zoologist_ of December 1848. This dissertation is at least better than the first, being partly critical, partly historical. Again, for history’s sake, I am obliged to repeat nearly his whole paper.

“It grows more and more necessary every day to acknowledge the _existence_ of a vast form of marine animal bearing some resemblance to a serpent. The recent letter of Captain M’Quhae to the Admiralty allows of no other alternative than either to admit the evidence, or invent some still more extraordinary hypothesis to explain it away. The forms of bearings of the strangers have been duly reported at head quarters, and no more deserve to be called in question, as regards the fidelity of the narrator, than the existence of any commissioned “Snake” or “Anaconda”, whose station and appointments we find recorded in the daily press. No preternatural messenger in “the shape that tempted Eve”,--he passes by on the other side without manifesting the slightest degree of interest in human affairs; no phantom progeny of light and air, although affecting literally the same haunts as the “Flying Dutchman”,--he steers himself by compass, and is the herald of no signal disaster; no herd of porpoises disporting all in a row, and joined together by some _Daedalian_ process of imagination into the semblance of unity--his head is “decidedly that of a snake”,--he carries it for twenty minutes at a time out of the water; and his body is seen for a continuous length of sixty feet on a level with the surface. From the standard jest of the witty, and the discarded problem of the wise, he has shown himself likely to be “no joke” for his physical powers, and well deserving the gravest scientific inquiry.”

“To show what a formidable and unyielding front has been heretofore opposed to him, I shall quote a passage from the article under the head of “Serpents” in the last edition of the “Encyclopedia Britannica” (1842): “No proper proof has yet been adduced of any of these species (sea-serpents) inhabiting the “American Ferry”, as we see that world of waters now named since the steaming days of the British Queen and the Great Western. Mr. Schlegel characterizes the statement as an assertion _que je puis contredire avec certitude_: and the author adds: “we shall content ourselves by stating that sea-serpents have not yet been observed in the Atlantic Ocean”. The following notice occurs in a popular compilation of the animal kingdom just issued from the press (1848): “Sea-serpent (or the Kraken). The appearance of this _fabulous_ monster is thus accounted for by Mr. A. Adams. In the Sooloo seas I have often watched the phenomenon which first gave rise to the marvellous stories of the great sea-serpent, viz., lines of rolling porpoises resembling a long string of buoys oftentimes extending seventy, eighty, or one hundred yards. These constitute the so-named protuberances of the monster’s back, keep in close single file progressing rapidly along the calm surface of the water,” &c. Had the _fabulous_ serpent in Aesop, who complained of being “a multis hominibus pessumdatus”, been aware of what laid up in the fates for his aquatic relative, no doubt he would have ceased to repine at his own hard lot.”

“The official corroboration of the fundamental truth of these “marvellous stories” is important, not only because the author under the circumstances must at least receive credit for the most entire sincerity, but from the encouragement thus given to other credible witnesses to bring forward their evidence. There is no reason to suppose that even this would have been readily laid before the public, but for the desire expressed by the Board of Admiralty to learn the truth of an accidental rumour. As regards any additional light thrown on the natural history of the animal, it is not more satisfactory than many of the accounts we already possess. Indeed the paragraphs which precede the captain’s letter in the “Zoologist” viz., the extract from the journal of Lieut. Drummond, and the first public rumour as it appeared in the “Times”, tend rather to confuse the official statement, and will no doubt be used to create suspicions of its accuracy. The communication which follows it, purporting to give a report of another specimen seen by an American captain, is supposed to be “a hoax”, and as such is worthy of preservation from the ingenuity it displays.”

“When a doctrine is assumed to be fanciful, people seldom take the trouble to inquire into its history and merits. This may account for the sea-serpent being commonly confounded with a very different prodigy, too exacting in its claims for the most extravagant credulity of modern days to regard with favour. As seen above, its name and that of Kraken are popularly used as synonymous. And nevertheless, Pontoppidan, Bishop of Bergen, whose “Natural History of Norway” (translated into English in 1755) is the usual standard of authority on both subjects, treats of them separately in appropriate sections of his work. Of the Kraken he says, “I come now to the third, and incontestably the largest sea-monster in the world: it is called Kraken, krasen, or, as some name it, krabben, that word being applied by way of eminence to this creature”. Its back or upper part he described as truly gigantic, being a mile and a half or more in circumference, and it is provided with limbs so strong as to be able to pull boats and the smaller sailing crafts under water. Some deem the original of this story to have been a Sepia or Medusa of enormous size; others set it down for an optical illusion; Pontoppidan himself thinks that “in all probability it may be reckoned of the polypi or of the starfish kind”. One cannot help being reminded, on reading the above, of the passage in Milton where he compares Satan, “prone on the flood”, to “That sea-beast””....... &c.--

“Commentators have been divided in opinion whether Milton supposed the leviathan to be a crocodile or a whale. The former idea derives little support from the text; the whale, which has only lately been divested of its “scaly rind”, puts forward more plausible pretentions: nevertheless, the vast bulk of the creature alluded to, and its position, “slumbring in the Norway foam”, suggest the inquiry whether the poet may not have had in his mind a tradition of the kraken. I may mention here that the Norwegian Bishop believed that the Leviathan of Job and Isaiah had been detected in the _sea-serpent_. Of the latter animal Pontoppidan says: “The soe-ormen””....... &c.

“It would serve little purpose to occupy these pages with mere copies of the published narratives and depositions tending to prove the existence of the animal under our consideration. Whatever discrepancies may perplex us with regard to subordinate details, it is important to remember that the one ruling form, that of a serpent, is the foundation of all the descriptions. The form may vary--in length, perhaps, from forty to a hundred feet and upwards; in the relative dimensions of the head and different parts of the body; in the presence or absence of a mane or paddles; and more particularly with respect to an appearance of dorsal arches or elevations, rising above the water like a row of casks or buoys. The greater part of the evidence on the subject is contained, I believe, in Pontoppidan’s “Natural History of Norway” (1755), the “Report of a Committee of the Linnaean Society of New England relative to a large Marine Animal, supposed to be a Sea-Serpent, seen near Cape Ann, Massachusetts, in August, 1817” (Boston 1817), and the last volume of “The Zoologist” (1847). In the Scandinavian work the principal witness is Captain L. de Ferry, of the Navy, who thus describes an individual which he saw while in a boat, rowed by eight men, within six miles of Molde, in a calm hot day of August, 1747. “The head of the snake””..... &c.

“The Report of the Linnaean Society of New England contains the result of an inquiry”....... &c.

“The tenor of the late observations in Norway recorded in the “Zoologist” (Zool. 1604) certainly might justify the inference that these so remarkable prominences are not persistent, but depend, as suggested by the American functionary, on the mode of progression practised at the moment. Anybody that had watched the lithe and varied curves of an otter in the water can have no difficulty in recording together the different kinds of undulations to the sea-serpent. There is one particular of rare occurrence worthy of notice, in one of these later accounts, calling to mind a peculiarity in the description of the animal seen by Mr. Egede, a Greenland missionary and furnished to us with a copy of the figure, by Pontoppidan. This creature, of the unusual length of 600 feet, “had under its body two flappers, or perhaps two broad fins”. One of the recent narratives also states of the progressive movement, that it appeared to be produced “by the help of two fins” (Zool. 1607). Thus is offered a possible solution of the difficulty occasioned by captain M’Quhae’s specimen having advanced at a rapid rate, with 60 feet of the body à fleur d’eau, without any visible undulation.” (I, however, refer the reader to the report of 1845, July 28).

“Here I may refer to “The Description of an Animal stranded on the Island of Stronsa, in the year 1808” given in the first Volume of the “Wernerian Transactions” by the late eminent Dr. Barclay. Evidently disposed to believe that this animal was a sea-serpent, Dr. Barclay indignantly repudiates the opinion of Mr. Home, that it was nothing more than a shark (_Squalus maximus_). Figures of the two are shown in juxtaposition, for the purpose of constrasting them, and to all appearance their respective peculiarities are quite sufficient to distinctive appellations. The Orkney animal, in fact, bears a curious resemblance to a _Plesiosaurus_, with _six_ legs. Nevertheless, anatomists have decided that a shark it really was, the anomalies being accounted for by the circumstance of the drawing having been taken from hearsay and under the supervision of persons who only saw the original in a very imperfect state. The “Animal of Stronsa” and the “Scoliophis atlanticus” leave us equally in the dark with regard to the physical economy of the sea-serpent; that is, unless the solution offered by Drs. Mantell and Melville (Zool. 2310) shall prove to be correct.” (See our 7th. explanation.)

“From what precedes it is evident, _First_, that the notion of the sea-serpent is not a mere growth of unlettered and credulous superstition, since it has been repeated and confirmed by parties than whom it would be difficult to select any more worthy of confidence, with this sole objection--that none of them have been naturalists. The critical eye of a Müller or an Owen would determine its true affinities in a moment. _Secondly_, that if we do the justice of rejecting all extraneous ideas, and confine ourself to what strictly relates to the object in question, there is a consistent tendency in nearly all the different narratives to invest it with the true characters of the reptilian class. _Thirdly_, that if there be any truth in the idea that the animal spends most of its time under water, only rising to the surface in calm weather during the summer months, this--however difficult to conceive of an air-breathing creature--in a great measure accounts for the infrequency of its occurrence. But are there no other forms, even of the highest stage of organization, which have been able to conceal themselves from the scrutinizing of naturalists? Not to speak of the minor accessions of unknown species, coming in to adorn our collections and extend the limits of science, it deserves to be borne in mind that perhaps the very chief of all the quadrumana (_Troglodytes gorilla_ of Savage), the being that holds the foremost rank in the scale next to man, is one of the most recent contributions of the African Fauna. At the beginning of this century a cetaceous animal (_Physeter bidens_ of Sowerby), sixteen feet long, was cast ashore on the coast of Elginshire, the species has been previously undescribed, and not another example is _commonly_ believed to have since occurred. From the difficulty of assigning it a place, it has been the subject of no fewer than four or five generic appellations, and it is finally referred, by my friend Dr. Melville, to the _Delphinorhynchus micropterus_ of Dumortier, two other specimens of which only exist, the one _stranded_ at Havre, the other at Ostend. Were this animal known only by tradition, it is improbable that naturalists would have refused it their sanction, under an impression that a species of such individual magnitude could not possibly have escaped being captured and subjected of their criticism? And yet the recognition of the great _Physeter bidens_ is purely the result of an accident!”

“If the reptilian nature of this mysterious creature be supposed to have been established, it becomes an interesting speculation to consider how far the stories of terrific dragons, transmitted to us by the ancients, had their origin in realities with which they were more conversant than ourselves. The sea-serpent, if a real existence, is of no modern creation. Our forefathers must have seen it. The utmost length at present allowed to land-snakes is twenty-five feet (Schlegel). Nevertheless, the very important part sustained by the serpent in the old mythologies,--its imposing magnitude and powers, and celebrated by historians and poets,--and its consequence in the romantic animals of the middle ages, will unstill a suspicion that, perhaps, not the biographers of snakes were mendaceous, but their heroes, like those of “the last minstrel”, have changed or disappeared in the progress of civilization. It is without the slightest idea of attaching any overstrained importance to the following passages that I venture to quote them, as proving that the idea of serpents frequenting and traversing the sea was at least not repugnant to ancient prejudices. The avenging ministers of Minerva, crossing the Aegean on their mission to destroy Laocoon, might be vindicated by an ardent classic as the model from which the moderns have often plagiarised their descriptions of the sea-serpent.

“Ecce autem gemini a tenedo _tranquilla_ per alta “(Horresco referens) _immensis orbibus_ angues “Incumbunt pelago, pariterque ad litora tendunt: “Pectora quorum iter fluctus arrecta, jubaeque “Sanguineae exuperant undas; pars caetera pontum “Pone legit, sinuatque immensa volumine terga. “Fit sonitus spumante salo”.--_Virgil._--[3].

[3] Look, from Tenedos there come down through the _quiet_ see (I shudder in telling it) two serpents in _enormous coils_, moving through the sea, and together they direct themselves to the strand: their chests, held up between the waves, and their blood-red _mane_ are held above the waves; the remaining part lashes the sea, and they bent their immense backs in coils. There arises a noise, whilst the ocean skims.--Vergilius, Aeneis, II, 203, sqq.

“The poet, too, is sustained by the naturalist, for here we have Pliny (whose facts by the way deserve to have inspired the apophthegm that “truth is stranger than fiction”) telling how the African _dracones_ were wont to club together and brave the perils of the Red Sea, in quest of the more luxurious diet of Arabia: “Narratur in maritimis eorum quaternos quinosque inter se cratium modo implexos erectis capitibus velificantes, ad meliora pabula Arabiae vehi fluctibus.” (Plin. Hist. Nat. VIII, 13).[4]

[4] “And (the Asachaeans) tell that near their coasts every time four or five of these (dragons) twisted together in the way of a twisted work, and sailing with their heads erected in the air, sail on the waves towards a better provender place of Arabia.”

“On a former occasion (Zool. 1841) I took advantage of the rare opportunity afforded for the discussion of the subject by the conductor of this journal, for the purpose of showing, first, that sea-serpents as a family have long been perfectly recognized in science, and that therefore the name itself should inspire no sentiment of ridicule; and next, of remarking that strange as are the properties attributed to the great sea-serpent, there are remains of a former world in our museums which in their perfect state united them all or nearly all. Encouraged by the Editor’s referring them to the Enaliosauri [Zool. LIV. Wrapper] I ventured to name the Plesiosaurus as the marine animal of our acquaintance to which they bear the nearest resemblance. This, although admitted at the time to be a daring breach of the _Draconic_ laws of geology,--laws, which, having once consigned an organized form to extinction, have very rarely relaxed their rigour,--seemed to be a necessary result to the argument _par voie d’exclusion_: if not a Plesiosaurus what else is it likely to be, allowing the descriptions to be at all correct? Is it an anomalous shark? and does the “animal of Stronsa” after all furnish the real key to the problem? The affirmative side of the question is not without at least two very able supporters (see Zool. 2310); and yet how to reconcile the characteristics of any possible shark with the sea-serpent-like head, curved neck, mane, or certainly very equivocal dorsal fin, and the protuberances so often mentioned, it is difficult to imagine. A recent correspondent of the “Times” (Zool. 2311) calls attention to the striking resemblance between the sea-serpent and the Plesiosaurus, and is surprised at its never having occurred to any one before. If the signature F. G. S. implies that the writer is a Fellow of the Geological Society, it is satisfactory to find a member of that particular body, whose favour was least to be expected, so pleased with the idea as to be willing to adopt it for his own. It had, however, been repeated and widely circulated by other periodicals. In the words of an elegant contributor in “Chambers’ Edinburgh Journal who alludes to it” one would almost suppose that among the buried learning of the earlier nations there lurked some knowledge of geology, seeing how their ideas about dragons came to such a conformity in some respects, with the realities of these preadamite reptiles.”

“The determination of a great marine species, however, and even a knowledge of its habits and influence on the other inhabitants of the deep, are not, as I conceive, the most obvious advantages to be desired from the settlement of this question. Let it be admitted that a huge unknown creature of any description, provided its general appearance is such as to redeem the various historians of the great sea-serpent from the charge of wilful deception, does “swim the ocean stream”, and the value of the result cannot be too easily over-estimated. The _cui-bono_ philosopher, the bugbear of naturalists, will no doubt have been highly amused with the recent excitement about a discovery that at first sight appears of no practical consequence to the interests of man. I know of no subject of research he would be likely to seize upon with more secure self-complacency--or of one which, though indirectly, supplies a more triumphal answer. To have our failing confidence in the value of human testimony reassured (and no evidence can be more solemn than that which relates to the sea-serpent), is surely no trifling gain of itself. But more than this: no circumstance has tended so emphatically to stamp the “Yankee” character with the stain of a bold and unscrupulous love of fiction and exaggeration as the story of the sea-serpent. Perhaps, on the principle of Mr. Warren’s “man about town”, who, being called a _splendid sinner_, made it his pride to deserve the title, the thoughtless portion of our Trans-atlantic family (the generous tribute of an Agassiz is sufficient warrant for the _savans_) may have thence been led to indulge in a dangerous style of humour, through a spirit of bravads. This source of misunderstanding once removed, the American character may afterwards be regarded with more respect, and the people themselves--no longer excited to defy the ridicule they were not able to escape--may sober down to the legitimate standard of reason.”