Part 131

“And so great in some minds is the fear of popular ridicule regarding this subject, that one ship-captain related that when a sea-serpent had been seen by his crew from the deck of the vessel, he remained below; since, to use his own words: “had I said I had seen the sea-serpent, I should have been considered to be a warranted liar all my life after”!”

And Captain DREVAR wrote to the Editor of the Graphic (144):--

“My relatives wrote saying that they would have seen a hundred sea-serpents and never reported it, and a lady also wrote that she pitied any one that was related to any one who had seen the sea-serpent.”

I hope that within a few years this fear of meeting with a sea-serpent will no more be heard of.

* * * * *

Should any one be induced by this publication to make an extract of it, to criticize it, to write a paper against it, or to publish new evidences, etc., etc., I kindly request him to send me a copy of his work, for it is impossible for me to get hold of all what hereafter may be written about the subject, or to consult each notice.

Transcriber’s Notes

Erroneous, unusual, archaic and inconsistent spelling, hyphenation, formatting, paragraph numbering, capitalisation, choice of words, typography, the use of quote marks, etc. have been retained, except as listed under Changes below. Proper names and names of ships, species, publications, etc. may be printed inconsistently.

Depending on the hard- and software used to read this book, and their settings, not all elements may display as intended.

Page 110, Burgomaster of Malmoi: possibly an error for Burgomaster of Malmö.

Page 246, ... about one sixteenth of a mile” (about 515 yards) ...: at least one of the lengths is erroneous.

Page 267 and 271: there is no report number 216.

Page 363, ... which appeared in an unusual state of excitement” ...: the opening quote mark is lacking.

Page 388, ... all parts were disfigured by sickness much so ...: there are possibly some words missing.

Page 395: ... and the right and left gill-aperturus, or gill-splits, ...: possibly errors for gill-apertures and or gill-slits.

Page 405-406, paragraph starting “Further, and what completely sets at rest ...: there are quote marks missing or in excess.

Page 451, ... probably he had particularly noticed that point ...: the author may have intended ... probably he had not particularly noticed that point ....

Changes made:

Footnotes have been moved to under the paragraphs to which they refer, illustrations have been moved out of text paragraphs.

Obvious minor typographical and punctuation errors have been corrected silently.

Double quote marks and ditto marks have been standardised to “, ” and „ respectively. Scotch names (like M’ Guire and M’Guire) have been standardised to M’Guire (unspaced).

Place Source document This text -------- ----------------------------- ------------------------------ Page 3 Closing bracket deleted from after ... the library of the Royal University of Göttingen. (entry 1818, Aug. 21)

Page 6 Essay on the physionomy Essay on the physiognomy

Page 8 Indentation removed from before 1848.--Proceedings of the Royal Society

Page 11 that terrible “Maby Dick” that terrible “Moby Dick”

Page 14 incerted it in his journal inserted it in his journal

Page 22 haunted the coast of haunted the coast of Massachusets Massachusetts

Page 33 Closing quote mark inserted after ... of the fossil bones pointed out.