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 bearing a similar relation to that ancient type. The _Iguanodon_ has degenerated (I speak of the type, and not of the species) to the small size of the _Iguana_; the _Plesiosaurus_ may have become developed to the gigantic dimensions of the sea-serpent.”
“A correspondent of the _Zoologist_ (2395) adduces the great authority of Professor Agassiz to the possibility of the present existence of the _Enaliosaurian_ type. That eminent palaeontologist is represented as saying, that “it would be in precise conformity with analogy that such an animal should exist in the American seas, as he had found numerous instances in which the fossil forms of the Old World were represented by living types in the New. He instances the gar pike of the Western rivers, and said he had found several instances in his visit to Lake Superior, where he had detected several fishes belonging to genera now extinct in Europe.””
“On this point, however, an actual testimony exists, to which I cannot but attach a very great value.”
Here Mr. GOSSE cites the report of Captain HOPE (n^o. 119), and goes on:
“Now, unless this officer was egregiously deceived, he saw an animal which could have been no other than an _Enaliosaur_,--a marine reptile of large size, of sauroid figure, with turtle-like paddles. It is a pity that no estimate, even approximate, of the dimensions is given; but as the alligator affords the comparison as to form, it is most probable that there was a general agreement with it in size. This might make it some twelve or fifteen feet in length.”
“I cannot, then, admit that either the _general_ substitution of _Cetacea_ for _Enaliosauria_ in our era, or the absence of remains of the latter in the tertiary deposits, is sufficient evidence of their non-existence in our seas; any more than the general replacement of _Placoid_ and _Ganoid_ fishes by the Cycloids and Ctenoids, or the absence of the former two from the tertiaries, is proof of _their_ present non-existence.”
“It must not be forgotten, as Mr. Darwin has ably insisted, that the specimens we possess of fossil organisms are very far indeed from being a complete series. They are rather fragments accidentally preserved, by favouring circumstances, in an almost total wreck. The _Enaliosauria_, particularly abundant in the secondary epoch, may have become sufficiently scarce in the tertiary to have no representative in these preserved fragmentary collections, and yet not have been absolutely extinct.”
“But Professor Owen presses also the absence of any recognised recent remains of such animals. Let us test this evidence first by hypothesis, and then by actual fact.”
“It may be that a true serpent, with large vesicular lungs, would float when dead, and be liable to be seen by navigators in that condition, or to be washed ashore, where its peculiar skeleton would be sure to attract notice. But, as I have before said, I do not by any means believe that the unknown creature is a _serpent_ in the zoological sense. Would a _Plesiosaurus_ float when dead? I think not. It is supposed to have had affinities with the whales. Now, a whale sinks like lead as soon as the blubber is removed; the surface-fat alone causes a whale to float. But we have no warrant for assuming that the _Plesiosaur_ was encased in a thick blanket of blubber; no geologist has suggested any such thing, and the long neck forbids it; and if not, doubtless it would sink, and not float, when dead. Therefore the stranding of such a carcase, or the washing ashore of such a skeleton, would most probably be an extremely rare occurrence, even if the animal were as abundant as the sperm whale; but, on the supposition that the species itself is almost extinct, we ought not to expect such an incident, perhaps, in a thousand years. If we add to this the recollection, how small a portion of the border of the ocean is habitually viewed by persons able to discriminate between the vertebrae of an _Enaliosaur_ and those of a _Cetacean_, we shall not, I think, attach great importance to this objection.”
“The only region of the globe in which the unknown monster is reputed to be in any sense common, is the coast of Norway. Now this, it is true, is fortunately within the ken of civilized and scientific men; and, confessedly, no enormous ophidian or saurian carcases have ever been recognised on that shore. But the shore of Norway is, perhaps, the least favourable in the world for such a _jetsam_. Such a thing as a sand or shingle beach is scarcely known; the coast is almost exclusively what is called iron-bound; the borders of the deeply indented fjords rise abruptly out of the sea, so that there is generally from fifty to three hundred fathoms’ depth of water within a boat’s length of the shore. How could a carcase or a skeleton be cast up here, even if it floated?”
“But, secondly, as to facts. Is it true, that of all the larger oceanic animals we find the carcases or skeletons cast up on the shore? Is it true even of the _Cetacea_, whose blubber-covered bodies invariably ensure their floating, and whose bones are so saturated with oil that they are but little heavier than water?”
“In September 1825, a cetacean was stranded on the French coast, which was previously unknown to naturalists. It was so fortunate as to fall under the examination of so eminent a zoologist as De Blainville; and hence its anatomy was well investigated. It has become celebrated as the Toothless Whale of Havre (_Aodon Dalei_). Yet _no other example of this species is on record_; and, but for this accident, a whale _inhabiting the British Channel_ would be quite unrecognised.”
“Of another Whale (_Diodon Sowerbyi_), _likewise British, our entire knowledge rests on a single individual_ which was cast on shore on the Elgin coast, and was seen and described by the naturalist Sowerby.”
“There is a species of sperm whale (_Physeter tursio_) affirmed to be frequently seen about the Shetland Islands; a vast creature of sixty feet in length, and readily distinguishable from all other _Cetacea_ by its lofty dorsal, and, according to old Sibbald, by other remarkable peculiarities in its anatomy. Yet _no specimen of this huge creature has fallen under modern scientific observation_; and zoologists are not yet agreed among themselves whether the high-finned Cachelot is a myth or a reality!”
“Mr. Rafinesque Schmaltz, a Sicilian naturalist, described a Cetacean which, he said, he had seen in the Mediterranean, possessing _two dorsals_. The character was so abnormal that his statement was not received; but the eminent zoologists attached to one of the French exploring expeditions,--MM. Quoy and Gaimard,--saw a school of cetacea around their ship in the South Pacific, having this extraordinary character,--the supernumerary fin being placed on the back of the head. Here is the evidence of competent naturalists to the existence of a most remarkable whale, _no carcase_ of which--_no skeleton--has ever been recognised_.”
“The last example I shall adduce is from my own experience. During my voyage to Jamaica, when in lat. 19° N., and long. from 46° to 48° W., the ship was surrounded for _seventeen continuous hours_ with a troop of whales, of a species which is certainly undescribed. I had ample opportunity for examination, and found that it was a _Delphinorhynchus_, thirty feet in length, black above and white beneath, with the swimming paws wide on the upper surface, and isolated by the surrounding black of the upper parts,--a very remarkable character. This could not have been the Toothless Whale of Havre; and there is no other with which it can be confounded. _Here, then, is a whale of large size, occurring in great numbers in the North Atlantic, which on no other occasion has fallen under scientific observation._”
“Are not these facts, then, sufficiently weighty to restrain us from rejecting so great an amount of testimony to the so-called sea-serpent, merely on the ground that its dead remains have not come under examination?”
“In conclusion, I express my own confident persuasion, that there exists some oceanic animal of immense proportions, which has not yet been received into the category of scientific zoology; and my strong opinion, that it possesses close affinities with the fossil _Enaliosauria_ of the lias.”
We only observe that Mr. GOSSE is evidently inclined to believe that there are “two or more species inhabiting the Northern and Southern oceans.” It is not at all plain what circumstance has led him to this supposition.
Curious is the comparison of the flappers, figured by Mr. BING (fig. 19) with the frill of the _Chlamydosaurus_. I give here a figure of such an animal.
Mr. GOSSE gets clearly entangled in his own considerations of the affinity of the sea-serpent with the _Plesiosaurus_ when he comes to the fact of the existence of a mane. It is a pity that he has not mixed up with his considerations the well-known _Iguana tuberculata_, a lizard belonging to the same family as the _Chlamydosaurus_, but which has a comb extending over the whole length of the neck, the back and the tail!
Mr. LEE in his _Sea Monsters Unmasked_, considering the _Plesiosaurus_ hypothesis, says:
“I think this theory is not forced upon us.”
Of the probability of living _Plesiosauri_, however, he says:
“Only a geologist can fully appreciate how enormously the balance of probability is contrary to the supposition that any of the gigantic marine saurians of the secondary deposits should have continued to live up to the present time. And yet I am bound to say, that this does not amount to an impossibility, for the evidence against it is entirely negative. Nor is the conjecture that there may be in existence some congeners of these great reptiles inconsistent with zoological science. Dr. J. E. Gray, late of the British Museum, a strict zoologist, is cited by Mr. Gosse as having long ago expressed his opinion that some undescribed form exists which is intermediate between the tortoises and the serpents.”
“Prof. Agassiz, too, is adduced by a correspondent of the _Zoologist_ (p. 2395), as having said concerning the present existence of the Enaliosaurian type that “it would be in precise conformity with analogy that such an animal should exist in the American Seas, as he had found numerous instances in which the fossil forms of the Old World were represented by living types in the New.”
It is obvious that of all animals, now living or extinct, the outlines of the _Plesiosaurus_ fit best to the descriptions and figures of the great sea-serpent. Abandoning the possibility of still living _Plesiosauri_, I reply to the question “Why cannot the sea-serpent be a _Plesiosaurus_?”
_Plesiosauri_ with such an enormous tail as the sea-serpent has, are hitherto unknown to palaeontologists, but, as to me, this cannot be of much importance; for there is no reason why in the course of ages this appendage should not have been developed to gigantic dimensions. The difference between the place of the nostrils in the two animals cannot claim any weight either (the _Plesiosaurus_ had its nostrils both before its eyes and not at the end of its snout, as is the case in the sea-serpent) for this place may have changed in process of time. But there are two other differences which are of very great importance, and settle the question: 1. The neck of the _Plesiosaurus_ must have been fit to be bent in all directions, but I think no palaeontologist will ever admit that its trunk or backbone could be bent in such vertical undulations, as is the case with the sea-serpents. 2. The _Plesiosaurus_ may have been destitute of scales, and may have had a smooth skin, it can never have been provided with a hairy skin as seals have, and at all events it had no mane, and no whiskers.
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An =eleventh= explanation is properly a negative one. In the _American Journal of Science and Arts_, of 1835, viz: Prof. BENJAMIN SILLIMAN, the Editor, published a report of one of his acquaintances, wherein the eye-witness declared: “nothing like a fin was seen”. Now Prof. SILLIMAN in a _Remark of the Editor_ says: “The absence of paddles or arms =forbids us from supposing that this was a swimming saurian=.”
I need not observe that this explanation was premature, and that the assertion “nothing like a fin was seen” does not exclude the presence of flappers, hidden under water. The flappers of a swimming sea-lion or seal are not generally seen either. If not a saurian, what kind of animal could it be then, a fish or a mammal?
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The =twelfth= explanation, viz: =a row of spermwhales=, which is found in Prof. SCHLEGEL’S _Essai sur la physionomie des Serpens_, 1837, p. 518, is better than that of a row of porpoises or of basking sharks, with their plainly visible backfins, for there is a species of spermwhales, viz. the _Catodon macrocephalus_ the backfin of which is so small as to be almost invisible. The other species, _Physeter tursio_ has a rather large and erected backfin.
Professor SCHLEGEL, after describing the appearance of a row of porpoises swimming in line, goes on saying: “This habit is also common to the larger cetaceans, which, however, only accidentally frequent our” (the Dutch) “coasts. The coasts of North-America, where the monstrous sea-serpent has so often been observed, swarm with them, and I confess that from a vessel, for instance, the unexpected appearance of a family of spermwhales swimming in line, with the eldest at the head, must offer a spectacle striking enough and fit to call forth at once superstition, imagination and fear.”
It is true that a row of sperm-whales must offer a striking spectacle, but in none of the accounts of the sea-serpent the “bunches” or visible parts of the vertical undulations surpassed the length of a fathom, whilst the visible parts of the backs of spermwhales measure several fathoms, and the distance between two of these backs in a row of spermwhales is enormous. The supposition, moreover, does not explain the head resembling that of a snake, and kept constantly above water, neither the long neck accidentally observed, the long and pointed tail, &c.
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The =thirteenth= explanation supposes that the sea-serpent may be a still living =Basilosaurus=, an extinct marine mammal, first described by HARLAN in the year 1824; afterwards the name was changed to that of _Zeuglodon_ by Prof. RICHARD OWEN. Fig. 65 represents the skeleton of a _Basilosaurus_. This animal lived in the tertiary periods. Almost all the characters of the skeleton remind us of Pinnipeds, only a few of Cetaceans, and so it is still doubtful to which order it belongs. Professor D’ARCY W. THOMPSON rejects all association with the Cetacea (_Studies from the Museum of Zoology in University College, Dundee_, Vol. I. N^o. 9.) The length of the largest skeletons measured seventy-five feet. The teeth and molars are nearly exactly those of seals. The nostrils were situated at the tip of the nose, as in seals, most probably, however, they were directed upwards. The bones of the rather short fore-extremities resemble those of seals. Most probably these limbs were provided with nails, as in seals. But, on the other hand, of some of the known skulls the remaining part shows an affinity to cetaceans. The vertebrae again are seal-like. Till now it is unknown whether the animal had hind-extremities or not, for the bones of them are not yet discovered. The body must have been rather slender and cylindrical. I venture to represent to my readers in fig. 66, a _Basilosaurus_ restored. As the bones of the fore-extremities closely resemble those of seals, it is probable that small hind-extremities were not wanting. If the former resembled those of dolphins, the existence of hind-flappers would be problematic. Yet I have omitted them, because the bones of them are not yet discovered, as far as I know.
The reader will remember that Dr. KOCH (see our Chapter on Hoaxes and Cheats) exhibited a large skeleton in Broadway, New-York, under the name of _Hydrarchos Sillimanni_. This skeleton was made by him out of several bones of the extinct _Basilosaurus_. The imposture was soon discovered by Prof. WYMAN, and, of course, immediately published in all kinds of newspapers, which also reached Europe. In FRORIEP’S _Neue Notizen_, of February, 1846, is one of these articles translated into German. Consequently we may conclude that the translator of this article knew that the _Hydrarchos Sillimanni_ was, in fact, made up of bones of the _Basilosaurus_. Now we find in FRORIEP’S _Notizen, Third Series_, Vol. III, n^o. 54, p. 148, 1847, a suggestion of a writer who wrote under the initials M. J. S. (evidently the Editor, the well-known Professor MATTHIAS JACOB SCHLEIDEN: I have searched the _Bibliotheca Zoologica_ of CARUS and ENGELMANN, and not found another author whose name has these initials):
“Is the sea-serpent perhaps identical with the _Hydrarchus_, viz. a still living species, a still present remainder, though in a few individuals, of former periods?”
I think that this means: “Are there perhaps still living _Basilosauri_, and is the sea-serpent perhaps one of these creatures?”
Mr. SEARLES V. WOOD, JUN. wrote in _Nature_ of 18th. of November, 1880, Vol. 23, a paper, entitled: “_Order Zeuglodontia_”, in which he tries to show that the sea-serpent most probably belongs to this Order. The contents of his paper are as follows:
“In August 1848 H. M. S. _Daedalus_ encountered off St. Helena a marine animal, of which a representation appeared in the _Illustrated News_ of the latter part of that year. It is thirty-two years since I saw this figure, but I recollect that it was one of a blunt-nosed animal with a neck carried about four feet above the water, which was so long as to present the appearance of a serpent; and I remember that Prof. Owen, in combating at the time the idea that this was a sea-serpent, pointed out that the position of the gape in relation to the eye, as shown in the figure in the _Illustrated News_, was that of a mammal, and not that of a reptile; in consequence of which he argued that the animal seen was probably only a leonine seal, whose track through the water gave an illusory impression of great length. This idea, however, seemed to me untenable in the face of the representation in the _Illustrated News_; but it was obvious that to afford the buoyancy necessary for the support above the water of so long a neck (estimated on that occasion as sixty feet though only the part near the head was actually out of the water), the submerged portion of the animal could not have had the shape of a serpent.”
“Two or three years after this, on reading the description of _Zeuglodon cetoides_, from the Tertiary (probably Upper Eocene) formations of Alabama, it struck me that the animal seen from the _Daedalus_ may have been a descendant of the order to which _Zeuglodon_ belonged; and I have ever since watched with interest for reports of the “great sea-serpent”.”
“Three years ago the following appeared in the newspapers.”
Here Mr. SEARLES WOOD copies the whole affidavit of the crew of the _Pauline_ (n^o. 144), and adds:
“The locality here specified was about thirty miles off the northern coast of Brazil.”
And he goes on:
“In this account I thought that I recognized the grip of the whale by the long neck of the attacking animal, the appearance being confounded into the double coil of a serpent by the distance and motions of the objects; but in face of the general ridicule which has been attached to this subject, and being without any assurance that the declaration so purporting to be made was genuine, I did not venture to ventilate my long-cherished idea. A relative of mine, however, just returned from India, chancing to say that two of the officers to the steamer in which she went out had on the previous voyage witnessed an immense animal rear its neck thirty feet out of the water, and that a sketch of the object had been instantly made, and on reaching port sent to the _Graphic_. I obtained the number of that paper for July 19, 1879, and I inclose a tracing of the figures in it, which are accompanied by the following statement in the Graphic:--”
The statement of the _Kiushiu Maru_ is further copied, accompanied by the two figures (see n^o. 151, figg. 48 and 49), and he continues saying:
“As I have not been able to find any description of the skeleton of the _Zeuglodon_, I venture to draw attention to the subject through your columns, in the hope that among your many readers in America this letter may attract the notice of some one who will tell us whether what is known of the osseous structure of _Zeuglodon cetoides_ is or is not consistent with the representation in the _Graphic_. The remains of the cetacean, supposed to be extinct, indicate, according to Sir Charles Lyell, that it was at least seventy feet in length, (He observes in the third edition of his “Manual of Elementary Geology”, 1851, p. 208, that he visited the spot where a vertebral column of this length belonging to _Zeuglodon_ had been dug up.) while its great double-faced but knife-edged molars show that it was carnivorous; and as we are not so far removed from the period of the Alabama Tertiaries as to render it improbable that members of what must once have been a great Order of carnivorous cetacea, totally distinct from the orders of cetacea hitherto known as living, may still survive, I have braved the ridicule attaching to this subject so far as to invite attention to it.”
“The second of the two figures in the _Graphic_ shows the long necked animal to possess the cetacean tail, and its head there seems to have been turned from the observer, so that the underside of it only is presented. The first figure shows that the whale had been seized on its flank by the powerful bite of its aggressor, and that to escape from this it had thrown itself out of the water. Having succeeded in this object the second figure shows the aggressor rearing its head and neck out of the water to discover the direction which its prey had taken, in order that it might follow it up; and so far from the charge of curious drawing made by the editor of the _Graphic_ being justified, the representation of the whale can be at once recognized as fairly correct; while that of the tail of the unknown animal (which probably prompted this charge), so far from being curious, forms an important piece of evidence as showing the animal in question to be catacean.”
This paper had already been sent to the Editors of _Nature_, when Mr. SEARLES V. WOOD, JUN., observed that he was mistaken as to the report, and as soon as possible he sent a Postscript to the Editors, which appeared appended to his paper. The postscript runs as follows: