Part 104

“We often saw the sea-serpent again without this resolution being effected, and, knowing what it was, could with difficulty still perceive that it was not a continuous body; thus having a new illustration of Hershell’s remark, that it is easier to see what has been once discovered than to discover what is unknown. Possibly this experience may afford the solution of your correspondent’s difficulty.”--W. STEADMAN ALDIS.--

As to the figure, it is our fig. 51.--In the next issue of Nature again another correspondent asserts:

“On reading the letter of W. Steadman Aldis in Nature yesterday, I was reminded by a person present that some years ago, when in Orkney, I pointed out an appearance that most people unaccustomed to witness it might have taken for a great sea-monster. This was nothing more or less than some hundred of cormorants or “skarps” flying in a continuous line close to the water, the deception being increased by the resemblance of a head caused by several “skarps” in a cluster heading the column, and by the “lumpy” seas of a swift tideway frequently intervening and hiding for an instance part of the black lines, causing the observer to--not unnaturally--imagine that the portions so hidden had gone under water. The speed of the cormorant on the wing may be fairly estimated at thirty miles an hour or more.”--J. RAE.

It would be superfluous to compare the sea-serpent with a mass of flying birds. The descriptions and figures of the former are the most striking proofs against this hypothesis.

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The =twenty-first= explanation was proposed by Dr. ANDREW WILSON in his Leisure Time Studies, 1879. He presents a frontispiece to his work “embodying the chief representations of the various theories of the sea-serpent question.” On the left side of the foreground is delineated =a large turtle=. Of this supposition Mr. LEE says in his Sea Monsters Unmasked:

“A giant turtle may have done duty, with its propelling flippers and broad back.”

The largest sea-turtle does not surpass the length of six feet, including the neck and head when stretched as much as possible. The breadth of the shell of such an individual may be about three and a half in diameter. It is impossible that sea-faring people would have been deceived by a swimming turtle. They know this animal well enough. Even a giant turtle would immediately be recognized by its broad shell. No sea-turtles occur near the Norwegian shore.

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The =twenty-second= explanation. I don’t know whether the note p. 106 of the third edition, 1884, of Mr. ANDREW WILSON’S Leisure Time Studies, also appeared in the first edition, January, 1879, and so I don’t know whether this author, or Mr. LEE, (1883), has a superior claim to the supposition that the great sea-serpent might be in some or in most instances =a giant cuttle-fish or calamary=.

Mr. ANDREW WILSON, quoting the report of Messrs. WEBSTER and ANDERSON (n^o. 146), in which the latter says: “the creature was apparently of a gelatinous (that is flabby) substance”, writes in a note:

“It is just possible that the “flabby” or “gelatinous” creature mentioned in this narrative was a giant cuttle-fish, whose manner of swimming, colour, absence of limbs, etc., would correspond with the details of the narrative. The “immense tail” might be the enormous arms of such a creature trailing behind the body as it swam backwards, propelled by jets of water from the breathing “funnel.””

Mr. LEE in his Sea Monsters Unmasked tries to explain all accounts of the sea-serpent by reference to large calamaries. Of one of the figures of OLAUS MAGNUS’ work (our fig. 14) he says: “the presumed body of the serpent was one of the arms of the squid” (which snatched the man from the vessel) “and the two rows of suckers thereto belonging are indicated in the illustration by the medial line traversing its whole length (intended to represent a dorsal fin) and the double row of transverse septa, one on each side of it.” I have discussed this explanation in its right place (see p. 106).

The “monster of EGEDE” he also explained by reference to a great calamary. Mr. LEE does not doubt of the accuracy of EGEDE’S description, but as to Mr. BING’S figure he says: “The high character of the narrator would lead us to accept his statement that he had seen something previously unknown to him (he does not say it was a sea-serpent) even if we could not explain or understand what it was that he saw. Fortunately however, the sketch made by Mr. BING, one of his brother-missionaries, has enabled us to do this”. And Mr. LEE has the boldness to figure a large calamary, with the words: “the animal which EGEDE probably saw”, of which figure I give a facsimile in fig. 70.--

Well! It looks convincing enough, and there is a savour of ingenious acuteness of wit in it, that might lull the suspicions of a doubting zoologist! What more could be required? And yet, the whole fabric falls to pieces as soon as we compare EGEDE’S description and BING’S drawing with the greater part of descriptions and figures given as well before as after EGEDE. His idea is far fetched and thereby impossible: 1. When a calamary propels itself with great velocity to the surface and raises its tail high out of the water, all its arms are turned and stretched downwards; not one is visible above the surface. 2. When a calamary is in this position and falls down in consequence of its weight, it will fall to the side where its body is nearest the water, in our figure to left, and not to right, as Mr. EGEDE saw very distinctly; he says: “backwards” that is towards the tail; and 3. A calamary in the position above delineated, spouting through its locomotor tube, spouts in a direction contrary to that which Mr. LEE has figured. The locomotor tube may be somewhat flexible, when at rest; it is stretched by its own muscular wall towards the head, and not towards the tail, nor in a direction perpendicularly to the body, when the act of spouting takes place. Moreover HANS EGEDE saw the sea-serpent spouting (exhaling) through its nostrils or its mouth, and not on or below the surface of the water, as the calamary of Mr. HENRY LEE!

Of Mr. MACLEAN’S report (n^o. 31) he says: “His description of it is exceedingly vague, but is strongly indicative of a great calamary”. If I may beg my readers to read Mr. MACLEAN’S report again, they will observe that nothing in it indicates a calamary!

About the report of Mr. J. C. LUND (n^o. 115) he writes:

“We may at once accept most fully and frankly the statements of all the worthy people mentioned in this series of incidents. There is no room for the shadow of a doubt that they all recounted conscientiously that which they saw. The last quoted occurrence, especially, is most accurately and intelligently described--so clearly, indeed, that it furnishes us with a clue to the identity of the strange visitant.”

“Here let me say--and I wish it to be distinctly understood--that I do not deny the possibility of the existence of a great sea-serpent, or other great creatures at present unknown to science, and that I have no inclination to explain away that which others have seen, because I myself have not witnessed it. “Seeing is believing”, it is said, and it is not agreeable to have to tell a person that, in common parlance, he “must not trust his own eyes”. It seems presumptuous even to hint that one may know better what was seen than the person who saw it. And yet I am obliged to say, reluctantly and courteously, but most firmly and assuredly, that these perfectly credible eye-witnesses did not correctly interpret that which they witnessed. In these cases, it is not the eye which deceives, nor the tongue which is untruthful, but the imagination which is led astray by the association of the thing seen with an erroneous idea. I venture to say this, not with any insolent assumption of superior acumen, but because we now possess a key to the mystery which Archdeacon Deinbolt and his neighbours had not access to, and which has only within the last few years been placed in our hands. The movements and aspect of their sea-monster are those of an animal with which we are now well acquainted, but of the existence of which the narrators of these occasional visitations were unaware; namely, the great calamary, the same which gave rise to the stories of the Kraken, and which has probably been a denizen of the Skandinavian seas and fjords from time immemorial. It must be remembered, as I have elsewhere said, that until the year 1873, notwithstanding the adventure of the Alecton in 1861, a cuttle measuring in total length fifty or sixty feet was generally looked upon as equally mythical with the great sea-serpent. Both were popularly scoffed at, and to express belief in either was to incur ridicule. But in the year above mentioned, specimens of even greater dimensions than those quoted were met with on the coasts of Newfoundland, and portions of them were deposited in museums, to silence the incredulous and interest zoologists. When Archdeacon Deinbolt published in 1846 the declaration of Mr. Lund and his companions of the fishing excursion he and they knew nothing of there being such an animal. They had formed no conception of it, nor had they the instructive privilege, possessed of late years by the public in England, of being able to watch attentively, and at leisure, the habits and movements of these strangely modified mollusks living in great tanks of sea-water in aquaria. If they had been thus acquainted with them, I believe they would have recognized in their supposed snake the elongated body of a giant squid.”

“When swimming, these squids propel themselves backwards by the outrush of a stream of water from a tube pointed in a direction contrary to that in which the animal is proceeding. The tail part, therefore, goes in advance, and the body tapers towards this, almost to a blunt point. At a short distance from the actual extremity two flat fins project from the body, one on each side, so that this end of the squid’s body somewhat resembles in shape the government “broad arrow”. It is a habit of these squids, the small species of which are met with in some localities in teeming abundance, to swim on the smooth surface of the water in hot and calm weather. The arrow-headed tail is then raised out of water, to a height which in a large individual might be three feet or more; and, as it precedes the rest of the body, moving at the rate of several miles an hour, it of course looks, to a person who has never heard of an animal going tail first at such a speed, like the creature’s head. The appearance of this “head” varies in accordance with the lateral fins being seen in profile or in broad expanse. The elongated, tubular-looking body gives the idea of the neck to which the “head” is attached; the eight arms trailing behind (the tentacles are always coiled away and concealed) supply the supposed mane floating on each side; the undulating motion in swimming, as the water is alternately drawn in and expelled, accords with the description, and the excurrent stream pouring aft from the locomotor tube, causes a long swirl and swell to be left in the animal’s wake, which, as I have often seen, may easily be mistaken for an indefinite prolongation of its body. The eyes are very large and prominent, and the general tone of colour varies through every tint of brown, purple, pink, and grey, as the creature is more or less excited, and the pigmentary matter circulates with more or less vigour through the curiously moving cells.”

“Here we have the “long marine animal” with “two fins on the forepart of the body near the head”, the “boiling of the water”, the “moving in undulations”, the “body round, and of a dark colour”, the “waving motion in the water behind the animal”, from which the witnesses concluded that “part of the body was concealed under water”, the “head raised, but the lower part not visible”, the “sharp snout”, the “smooth skin”, and the appearance described by Mr. William Knudtzon, and Candidatus Theologiae Bochlum, of “the head being long and small in proportion to the throat, the latter appearing much greater than the former”, which caused them to think “it was probably furnished with a mane”. Not that they saw any mane, but as they had been told of it, they thought they ought to have seen it. Less careful and conscientious persons would have persuaded themselves, and declared on oath, that they did see it.”

“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 such frictional disturbance that “white foam appeared before it, and at the side, which stretched out several fathoms”, and of “the water boiling around it on both sides of it”. The cuttle is the only animal that I know of that would cause this by the effluent current from its “syphon tube.” I have seen a deeply laden ship push in front of her a vast hillock of water, which fell off on each side in foam as it was parted by her bow; but that was of man’s construction. Nature builds on better lines. No swimming creature has such unnecessary friction to overcome. Even the seemingly unwieldy body of a porpoise enters and passes through the water without a splash, and nothing can be more easy and graceful than the feathering action of the flippers of the awkward-looking turtle.”

Again I beg my readers to read the above-mentioned account, that they may decide for themselves, whether the animal was a sea-serpent or a great calamary. Mr. LEE’S last views of the motion of sea-animals is also wrong; I make bold to contradict here all his assertions; for instance, he says: “Nature builds on better lines”. I say: If nature built on better lines, men would long ago have imitated them. All creatures, when swimming rapidly on the surface, cause a splash. Swans, when moving as rapidly as possible, cause heavy undulations before the chest, and I have observed myself the common porpoises in the Zuider Zee, which when coming to the surface to breathe, caused a splash and a rushing of water, which all who were on board distinctly saw and heard.

The sea-serpent of Mr. MORRIES STIRLING (n^o. 113) appeared, according to Mr. HENRY LEE also “to have been, like the others from the same locality, a large calamary.”

Of the sea-serpent seen by Captain M’QUHAE and his officers he says:

“Of course neither Professor Owen, nor any one else, doubted the veracity or bona fides of the captain and officers of one of Her Majesty’s ships; and their testimony was the more important because it was that of men accustomed to the sights of the sea. Their practised eyes would, probably, be able to detect the true character of anything met with afloat even if only partially seen, as intuitively as the Red Indian reads the signs of the forest or the trail; and therefore they were not likely to be deceived by any of the objects with which sailors are familiar. They would not be deluded by seals, porpoises, trunks of trees, or Brobdingnagian stems of Algae; but there was one animal with which they were not familiar, of the existence of which they were unaware, and which, as I have said, at that date was generally believed to be as unreal as the sea-serpent itself--namely, the great calamary, the elongated form of which has certainly in some other instances been mistaken for that of a sea-snake. One of these seen swimming in the manner I have described, and endeavoured to portray, would fulfil the description given by Lieutenant Drummond, and would in a great measure account for the appearances reported by Captain M’Quhae. “The head long, pointed and flat on the top”, accords with the pointed extremity and caudal fin of the squid. “Head kept horizontal with the surface of the water, and in rather a raised position, disappearing occasionally beneath a wave for a very brief interval, and not apparently for purposes of respiration.” A perfect description of the position and action of a squid swimming. “No portion of it perceptibly used in propelling it through the water, either by vertical or horizontal undulations.” The mode of propulsion of a squid--the outpouring stream of water from its locomotor tube--would be unseen and unsuspected, because submerged. Its effect, the swirl in its wake, would suggest a prolongation of the creature’s body. The numerous arms trailing astern at the surface of the water would give the appearance of a mane. I think it not impossible that if the officers of the Daedalus had been acquainted with this great sea-creature the impression on their mind’s eye would not have taken the form of a serpent. I offer this, with much diffidence, as a suggestion arising from recent discoveries; and by no means insist on its acceptance; for Captain M’Quhae, who had a very close view of the animal, distinctly says that “the head was, without any doubt, that of a serpent”, and one of his officers subsequently declared that the eye, the mouth, the nostril, the colour, and the form were all most distinctly visible.”

And of the sea-serpent of Mr. R. DAVIDSON (n^o. 93) he asserts: “The features of this incident are consistent with his having seen one of the, then unknown, great calamaries.”

The sea-serpent, seen by Lieutenant SANFORD (n^o. 74) is also explained by him to be “evidently a great squid seen under circumstances similar to those described by HANS EGEDE”.