Part 17

“This alleged monster of the deep first haunted the coast of Massachusetts, and frightened more particularly the neighbourhood of Gloucester with his presence. Observations were made, and evidence was collected to a large amount. These were so considerable and imposing, that the Linnean Society of New England published a book on the subject, with the figure of the enormous reptile under the name of Scoliophis. As the fishermen and naturalists could not catch him and bring him ashore for inspection, it was concluded to fortify the story by oaths. Accordingly, affidavits were made to great extent, containing the particulars of what the several deponents believed they had seen, and, as far as swearing went, such solemn declarations presented a strong case. Their operation however upon my mind was, that there was nothing better to show than those statements upon paper, which were, in no sense of the words, proofs of the fact, but merely expressions of the opinions formed by the deposing witnesses of what they had observed in the water. I who was a believer in the first instance, was gradually sworn into scepticism, which finally ended in incredulity.”

“About this stage of the panic, General David Humphreys did me the honor of a visit, and requested me to listen while he read a manuscript. To this I instantly consented. I discovered that my distinguished friend had visited Massachusetts for the express purpose of collecting all the testimony he could find concerning the sea-serpent. He was highly delighted with his success; and had reduced his researches into the form of letters addressed to Sir Joseph Banks, then President of the London Royal Society. He evidently intended to take the lead of the Linnean Society, and to acquire the honor and glory of making the wonderful intelligence known first to the sçavans of Europe. He did not vouchsafe, even to name me in the communication. After a very pleasant interview, during which I found that he positively considered himself right in the investigation, and I determined on my part to enter into no discussion about it, he requested me to receive the writing, and engage some bookseller to cause it to be put to press without delay. The reason for this was, that he was obliged to return forthwith to New-Haven. I made a contract in his behalf, and directed the proofsheets to be sent to him there. I had a lucky escape from an association with the extraordinary creature.”

“Afterwards, a mutilated specimen of a snake, killed on the land, somewhere thereabout, was brought to me preserved in alcoholic spirit. This had been exhibited as the spawn or young of the Great Scoliophis. The head, which contains the strong ophiological characters, had been crushed and destroyed. But, as far as I could judge, from the formation of the belly and tail, it had been a native of the land, (apparently a coluber,) and had, of course, no pretention to claim kindred with its pretended parent of the ocean.”

“I was the better enabled, I thought, to form a more correct opinion, relative to the matter, by reason of my possessing in my museum, at the time, four true sea-serpents, which my navigating friends had brought me from the Gulf of Mexico, and the Chinese Sea.”

“The history of Sea Serpentism is a very memorable part of the sayings and doings in this enlightened age and country. For the benefit of the present generation, and of posterity, it ought to be written. In proceeding to pen a short sketch of it, I must premise, that I am one of the last persons in existence who would presume to put a limit to creative power. I admit that the all-mighty being could make a water-snake as easily as a fish; and that such an animal might be as big as a Kraken, as easily as the diminutive size of the Stickleback. Yet, on reviewing these legends of the times, there is found such a propensity towards the strange and the marvellous, that the men of the present day show a credulity very much resembling that of the remote ages, when the terraqueous globe was peopled with gorgons, mermaids, chimeras, hydras, dragons, and all the monsters of fabulous zoology.”

“(a). The first tale I remember to have considered seriously relative to it was this: it had been determined, they said, to put a steam boat in operation at Boston to coast along shore and to convey passengers. It was foreseen that such a vessel would traverse the currents and pass among the islands with an ease and a speed unknown to boats moved by oars and sails; and of course, much of the business of transporting passengers would be taken away from the small craft heretofore employed. The large boat would thus destroy the small ones, or, as was expressed by another word, devour them. Under these forebodings, the steam-vessel made a trip, with favourable auspices. Some wag, the account proceeds, wrote for one of the gazettes, an allegorical description of a sea-serpent, that had been descried off Nahant and Gloucester, and had probably come there to consume all the small fish in the place. The narrative, given with such grave diction and imposing seriousness, was received by many as an actual and literal occurrence, and credited accordingly.”

“(b). Long Island Sound put in a claim for a sea-serpent. On this fiction I am well satisfied of the particulars that follow. An active young fellow who had become weary of ploughing the land, bought a little sloop of about fifteen tons, which I remember to have seen; and resolved to try his luck in ploughing the waves. He named his vessel the Sea-Serpent. She was mostly employed in carrying country produce to the New-York market and in bringing manure back, with the advantage of passengers when any offered. This boat was on her way from Mamaroneck harbor or thereabout toward the city, and was met by a sloop from that place, a short distance from City-Island. The captain of the latter, on arriving at home, was eagerly interrogated by a quidnunc for news; and being a man of some humor and fancy, told his neighbor, the querist, he had just seen the sea-serpent. He then described how (alluding to the barrels on deck) he had seen the bunches on his back; how high the head (meaning the bowsprit) was out of water; how the black and white colours (meaning the painted waist) were variegated; how he saw the lashing of the tail (meaning the motion of the boom in jibing as she was going along before a fair easterly wind); that this sea-serpent was proceeding with a speed equalling at least from five to six knots an hour, which made all white before him (meaning the foam at the bows). The good man took the joke in real earnest, went away and told it to a sensible acquaintance. This latter wrote a formal and solemn account of it; which, travelling an extensive round in the sheets of intelligence, was finally embodied in the aforesaid book, where it is registered as a part of the evidence.”

“(c). It was about this period of these transactions that I received from Boston an ichthyological production, enclosed in a letter, respectfully written, and with postage paid, submitting to me whether that article was not a piece of a sea-serpent’s hide? It had been found on the shore of the region which the alarming visitor frequented; and was supposed to have been separated from his body by one of the musket balls which had been fired at him and washed ashore. To this serious communication I returned for answer that it was simply a portion of skin with closely adhering scales, belonging to the bony scaled pike (Esox osseus), an inhabitant of the Atlantic Ocean.”

“(d). So much curiosity and excitement were now raised about the sea-serpent, that he was a prominent topic of conversation. The feeling was more intense, inasmuch as it was confidently declared he had been frequently observed near boats and vessels. It was at length concluded to fit an expedition, expressly for the purpose of catching him, with a select crew, under the command of Captain Rich. Day after day he cruised over tracts where the sea-serpent had, according to information, been observed, without discovering anything like him. At length, a creature was descried, which some of the men on board said they had seen before, and that it was the sea-serpent. The captain pursued the game a considerable time longer, with much vigilance and patience, until it was at a distance near enough to be harpooned. He was taken on board, and found to be a fish of the Mackerel family. I saw the preparation of it in the Greenwood Museum, and satisfied myself that it was an individual of a well known species called Tunny in the Mediterranean, and Albicore in the Atlantic sea.”

“After the capture of the fish, the persons who, when they saw him in the water, declared positively that he was the sea-serpent, now changed their minds, and swore he was not.”

“At length the man of successful exertion arrived with his prize; and unexpectedly and unfortunately drew upon him the displeasure of his employers for attempting to impose upon them a Horse-Mackerel (as they call it) for a Sea-Serpent! He told me the story himself.”

“(e). In this fervor of opinion, it was supposed for a time that a sea-serpent existed in Lake Ontario. A coasting navigator, somewhere between Kingston and York, had several times during his trips observed among the islands and rocks something that appeared to be a long animal with vertical flexures of the back, resembling lumps or humps of variegated black and white hues. He told some of his acquaintances what peculiar appearances had presented themselves to his view; and that he intended the next opportunity to take a more close and correct survey. He did so, shortly after, when the whole phenomenon ascended into the air! It turned out to be a speckled mother duck, with a numerous brood of young ones. They swam in a line, with the parent bird at the head. And as they rose and descended on the undulations, gave an appearance so like that ascribed to the sea-serpent, that the captain, though a wary man, would have solemnly declared, until he was undeceived, his belief in the existence of a sea-serpent there!”

“(f). Lake Erie brought forward pretensions too for a sea-serpent. One of the coasting vessels, navigated by three men, as she was steering eastward from Detroit, discovered something afloat on the hither side of the islands called “The Sisters”, which, when she arrived at the place of her destination on the southern shore, was reported by the men at the tavern and the printing office, to be the very creature. Mr. Printer wrote a paragraph on the subject, and inserted it in his paper, in which it travelled far and wide. It may be relied on that this alleged inhabitant of that inland sea, has been reduced to genus and species, by a distinguished naturalist, and registered very orderly in zoology. Now let us find what the production really turned out to be. The sheriff of the county, a sensible man, heard of the marvel, and conceiving that he knew as much about the lake as any person whatever, went on board full of curiosity, to make inquiry about it. He found but one of the people on board, whom he interrogated closely concerning the wonderful sight, with which he and his associates had entertained the neighbourhood. The sailor was soon implicated in contradictions. The querist, aware of the fellow’s confusion, asked him if he was not ashamed to propagate such falsehoods? He then said, if the sheriff would not be affronted, he would relate the whole story just as it was. At the place aforesaid, they passed a dry tree afloat; and concluding that the butt or root would do for a head, some knots on the trunk for knobs or bunches, and the top for a tail, they would have a little pastime by telling a story of a sea-serpent, which they thought their lake was as much entitled to as any other water. The whole three had agreed to tell the same tale and support it!”

“(g). When the skin, &c. of the huge basking shark, that had straggled from the Northern Ocean and had been killed in Raritan Bay (Squalus Maximus), was exhibited in New York City, the inhabitants were openly and earnestly invited by notice in words at length displayed in front of the house, to enter and behold the sea-serpent. The conceit took very well!”

“Now, after all these mistakes, deceptions and wilful perversions on the subject, every person of consideration may admit that the gambols of porpoises, the slow motions of basking sharks, and the yet different appearances of balaenopterous whales, all of which have fins on their backs, may have given rise to those parts of the narrations, not already herein commented upon.”

Professor SILLIMAN, the editor of the journal, could not help saying in a note:

“We give place to the scepticism of the learned author, although not ourselves sceptical on this subject. We do not see how such evidence as that presented by Dr. Bigelow Vol. II p. 147 of this Journal--particularly in the statements of Capt. Little of the Boston Frigate, and of Marshall Prince and family, and of Mr. Cabot, can be set aside--although we have no doubt that there have been on this subject both error and imposition; and we are far from believing that every thing that has been called a sea-serpent has really been such.”

Now in the whole dissertation there is not one single proof of the non-existence of the sea-serpent. Mr. MITCHILL gathered some hoaxes, which no doubt greatly amused his audience, but his statements are sadly wanting in correctness. He says, that the sea-serpent first haunted the coast of Massachusetts, while if he in October 1828, had taken the trouble to look up the literature on the subject, he would have found that the sea-serpent had already appeared on the coasts of Norway, in the Northern Atlantic, in Davis’ Straits, in the Northern Pacific near Behring’s Isle, and all along the Eastern coasts of the United States. The Linnaean Society, he further asserts “published a book on the subject, with the figure of the enormous reptile under the name of Scoliophis”. This is also untrue, for the Society only figured an individual of a sick and ill-formed Coluber constrictor, the so-called Black Snake, having only the length of about one yard! The “mutilated specimen of a snake” which was brought to him in alcoholic spirit, was the same figured by the Linnaean Society; and where Mr. MITCHILL says that he is convinced that the snake was a common native of the land, “apparently a Coluber”, he expresses an opinion which the Society already printed in their little book. Consequently he cannot claim priority in this matter. And finally, where he says that the story of the active young fellow with his sloop, called “the sea-serpent” is published in the aforesaid book of the Linnaean Society, he has told his audience and his readers what is commonly called “a falsehood”, for in the whole book there is not one “formal and solemn account” in which there is question of “white and black colours” which “were variegated”, of a “tail” which “lashed” the water, and of a motion of “six knots an hour, which made all white before him”.

I may safely express here my opinion that the whole paper of Mr. MITCHILL is an unscientific, deceptive dissertation, unworthy of notice, and that the way in which he ridiculed the endeavours of the Committee was unfair.

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Another hoax which appeared in some American newspapers I have found, translated into German, in FRORIEP’S Notizen, of 1830, June, Vol. XXVII, n^o. 589, p. 265:

“Again a story about the sea-serpent will be found in American newspapers. Capt. DELAND with the schooner Eagle ran into Charlston on the 27th. of March” (1830) “from Turtle River, and with his crew is willing to confirm by oath the truth of the following declaration: On the 23d. of March, at 11 o’clock A. M., at about a mile from Simons Bay, we perceived at the distance of about 300 yards a large body, resembling an alligator, which sometimes moved with the vessel, sometimes lay motionless on the surface. Capt. DELAND, who perceived that he approached the animal, loaded a musket with a ball, and steered so, that he approached it within 20 or 25 yards at a moment that it lay quite still and apparently careless. Capt. DELAND aimed with great sagacity at the hindpart of the head, the only part that was just visible, and the ball evidently struck. At this moment the monster, to the great terror of the crew, came directly up to the vessel, and in passing dealt her two or three heavy blows with its tail, of which the first struck the stem, and caused a shaking, felt by every-one on board. The Captain, as soon as he perceived the animal approach, jumped upon the load of cotton which lay on deck, and the whole crew, the mate not excepted, only thought of their safety. They all had opportunity to see their enemy and agree that its length was about 70 feet. The body was as thick as or thicker than a sixty-gallon keg, of a grey colour, eel-shaped, without visible fins and apparently covered with scales, the back full of joints or bunches, the head and beak resembled an alligator’s, the former 10 feet long, and as big as a hogshead. A smaller individual was observed at a great distance (!), which, however, disappeared at the shot, afterwards, however, both were seen again together, when they passed the North-Breaker where they disappeared.--Captain D. says, that four years ago he saw a similar creature at some distance off Doboy and had fired four times at it; without, however, causing such a visit as in the present case. He believes, that this terrible undescribed animal has strength enough to damage a vessel of the size of the Eagle, if not to destroy it, and feels happy to have got rid of it in this way. He further asserts that he has certainly not erred with regard to the shape of the sea-monster, and that it was different from whales and other inhabitants of the deep, which he has ever witnessed” (Chronicle).

Though the description of the form might lead to the belief that what is reported to have been seen was a real sea-serpent, yet I consider the whole account as a story, because it is not the habit of the sea-serpent to attack a ship after having been struck by a ball, but to plunge down and to disappear.

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Again the sea-serpent was said to have appeared in Lake Ontario. In FRORIEP’S Notizen of August 1835, Vol. 45, n^o. 980, p. 186, we read:

“The Colossal Sea-Serpent is again reported in the American newspapers. Now it is even told that it has been seen in Lake Ontario, 78 feet long, as thick as a large flour-barrel, and of a blue colour spotted with brown. If this is not an illusion, the sea-serpent at last ought to have been explained or will be so very soon”.

It seems that Mr. FRORIEP really believes, that if this report is not the result of an optical illusion, it is trustworthy, and that the appearance of the Sea-Serpent in Lake Ontario does not belong to the impossibilities! Every one will agree with me, that the report can only be the result of an illusion, or that it is a hoax.

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