Part 36

We have before us an animal of the following imperfect description:

The whole length of this animal far surpasses one hundred feet, and the smallest individual ever seen measured eighteen feet. The greatest thickness or diameter seems to be in the foremost third of its whole length, and in large individuals surpasses ten or even fifteen feet. Its head is small in reference to the body, its neck is long and slender, round as the body of a snake or eel; the thick trunk too is round: The tail is also round, thinner than the body and gradually grows thinner to its end, which is pointed. The animal has four flappers. The foremost are probably found about one fourth of the length, the hindmost probably in the middle of the whole length. The skin of the animal is hairy or woolly as a seal-skin; when wet it is smooth and glittering as a mirror. A long mane hangs down from the neck, and that mane is sometimes described as resembling sea-weed; when dry, the mane is whitish, or pale. The head is described as resembling that of a seal, or that of a horse. It tapers to the nose of the animal, so that some witnesses declare it has a sharp snout, others, however, that its end is like that of a cow’s, or a horse’s head, it has a broad and high, but flattened forehead. The nostrils are large, but as they are not always seen, it is evident that the animal can close them like a seal; on the lips some stiff hairs or bristles are planted. The colour of the head, when wet, is dark brown, when dry, however, greyish, except round the mouth and the eyes, where it is almost black. The mouth is large and provided with teeth. The eyes are large, sometimes described as being bluish and dull, sometimes black, glittering and brilliant, and sometimes reddish as a burning fire. We have already tried to explain these different statements. Its eye-brows are distinctly visible. Of the neck no particulars are observed except that it is long, round, and bears a mane, I should say like that of the Antarctic Sea-lions (Otaria jubata) but much more developed. Its fore-flappers are broad and large, and have probably an indented hind-edge, for Mr. BING drew externally visible fingers. Of its hind-flappers nothing is mentioned. There is a visible difference in thickness between the trunk and the very long tail of the animal: the body is not gradually growing smaller where the tail begins, but becomes small at once, and very distinctly. Here the animal’s hind-flappers must be placed. The colour of the body is said to be a dark brown, spotted and with light streaks, or marked with distinctly visible light spots. It has an astonishing flexibility in the neck as well as in the trunk and in the tail. It can bend its body sideways and backwards, and undulate it up and down like a rope. When the animal bends till it is U- or horse-shoe shaped, the skin obtains many folds or wrinkles. The mode of swimming is mostly by vertical undulations, which are partly visible above the surface of the water; the end of the tail is always hidden under water when the animal swims. From afar the visible parts of the coils are said to resemble tuns, buoys, wine-barrels or hogsheads. The coils are either very large, and then 7 or 8 of them are visible, and a distance of a fathom is between each two coils, or they are very small, and then it is said that twenty-five of them are visible. This is only to be explained by the degree of speed with which the animal undulates its body. For the same reason it also swims more or less swiftly; it may also swim with its body in a straight line, using in this case of course its flappers; this, however, happens very seldom; when swimming rapidly it propels the water before it with such a violence, that it boils and splashes up, with foam and a distinctly audible rushing. When swimming, the animal holds its head two feet above the surface of the water. Sometimes it raises its neck and head to a considerable height. Once the condensed breath of the animal was visible, and it was said to blow like a whale. It is only seen in summer and in fine weather. It is harmless when not provoked, it is curious and stupid. It feeds probably on cuttles, lobsters and crabs, (certainly however on fish.).

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Now we will go on with the perusal of the accounts concerning the animal and we shall observe that in general the accounts or rather the descriptions of the eye-witnesses repeat, and sometimes even in particulars, what we have gathered from the 14 above mentioned accounts and from what PONTOPPIDAN has taught us. I first invite the reader to follow me to the eastern coasts of the United States, next to the Northern Pacific, on the western coasts of Scotland, then again to the United States, and finally to Norway. In all these places, nay in every part of the world we shall meet with the animal which we shall find to be a true cosmopolitan, though the Atlantic seems to be its proper place of residence.

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=15=.--1751.--In a letter from Capt. GEORGE LITTLE to the Rev. ALDEN BRADFORD, printed in the second volume of SILLIMAN’S American Journal of Science and Arts, we read:

“A monster of the above description was seen in the same place, by JOSEPH KENT, of Marshfield, 1751. KENT said he was longer and larger than the main boom of his sloop, which was 85 tons. He had a fair opportunity of viewing him, as he saw it within ten or twelve yards of his sloop.”

In the “above description” the sea-serpent is described as having the appearance of a large black snake, from 45 to 50 feet long, with a head of nearly the size of that of a man, which he carried four or five feet above the water, and with the greatest diameter of 15 inches. The individual which was seen by JOSEPH KENT was evidently larger; by “the same place” is meant Round Pond in Broad Bay and near Muscongus Island.

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KNUD LEEMS, as we learn in A. DE CAPELL BROOKE’S Travels through Norway, a northern divine, wrote his Beskrivelse over Finmarkens Lappen, 1765, in which he mentions, p. 332, the sea-serpent in the following terms:

“The Finmark Sea also produces the hydra or sea-serpent, a huge monster, forty “passus” long, with a head resembling in size that of large sea-fishes, in shape that of a snake. This beast has a neck with a mane like a horse’s, a grey back and a whitish belly. In the dog days, when the sea is free from wind, the sea-serpent will come to the surface, bend itself in several coils, of which some are partly visible above the water, whilst others remain hidden under it. The seamen greatly fear this monster, and they do not trust themselves on the sea, when the animal is on the surface.”

The length of forty “passus”, i. e. 200 feet, the large head, resembling that of a snake, the mane, the grey back, the habit of the animal to swim with vertical undulations, are all characters known to us. We have here a new one, viz. that the belly is whitish, which we shall frequently meet hereafter. It is, however, not the belly that is meant here, but the animal’s throat. The animal’s neck being cylindrical, and its flappers constantly hidden under water, the observers thinking that the animal is eel-shaped, always call its throat “the belly”. We may safely suppose that the whole throat and the breast were seen, though not described, by HANS EGEDE, but that even he did not see the true belly.

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=16=.--1770?--In a letter from Mr. MC. LEAN to the Rev. ALDEN BRADFORD written in Aug. 1803, and published in SILLIMAN’S American Journal of Science and Arts (Vol. II) we read:

“One of the same kind was seen above thirty years ago, by the deceased Capt. PAUL REED, of Boothbay.”

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=17=.--1777 or 1778.--(Mem. Amer. Acad. Arts Sc. Vol. IV, Part I).

“The next notice is from Capt. ELEAZAR CRABTREE, who saw it in the same (Penobscot) Bay about the year 1785; he estimated its length at sixty feet, and its diameter he thought equal to that of a barrel, which is about twenty two inches.”

A testimony on oath was forwarded by Capt. CRABTREE to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, “but this was lost or mislaid.”--Fortunately, however, the notice was afterwards found back, and, as Prof. BIGELOW (see SILLIMAN’S Am. Journ. Sc. Arts Vol. II) says, “is now in the hands of the corresponding Secretary of the Academy,” Mr. JOHN Q. ADAMS, “where it may be seen.”

Mr. A. BRADFORD anxious to have all the information he could get, did not rest satisfied till he had a testimony of Capt. CRABTREE. Capt. CRABTREE, however, at that time an old man did not write this testimony himself, but had it written by another in his presence and signed it as a correct statement. It is published in the above mentioned Journal, Vol. II, and runs as follows:

“Capt. CRABTREE, now of Portland, (late of Fox Islands, in the Bay of Penobscot), declares, that in the year 1777 or 1778, upon information of a neighbour, that a large serpent was in the water, near the shore, just below his house, and having often been told by individuals that they had before seen a similar sea-monster in that quarter, and doubting of the correctness of their reports, was induced to go down to the water to satisfy his own mind--that he saw a large animal, in the form of a snake, lying almost motionless in the sea, about thirty rods from the bank where he stood--that his head was about four feet above water--that, from the appearance of the animal, he was 100 feet in length--that he did not go off to the animal through fear of the consequences, and that he judged him to be about three feet diameter; he also says, that before that time, many people, living on those islands, on whose reports he could depend, had declared to him that they had seen such an animal--and that more than one had been seen by several persons together.”

“Signed”

“ELEAZAR CRABTREE.”

We have again the statement that the sea-serpent held its head four feet above the surface of the water; its length was estimated at 100 feet, its diameter three feet; it was evidently this slenderness which led Capt. CRABTREE to compare the sea-serpent with a snake. The undulations are not mentioned, consequently most probably it lay stretched out.

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=18=.--1779.--(Mem. Amer. Acad. Arts Sc. Vol. IV. P. 1). “It appears by papers sent to the Academy in the year 1810, that this serpent was first seen in Penobscot Bay about the year 1779, by Mr. STEPHAN TUCKEY: he compared it to an unwrought spar (meaning probably one of spruce), which the scaly surface and dark colour of the animal would very much resemble; he thought it fifty or sixty feet in length.”

It is evident that Mr. STEPHAN TUCKEY only compared it with an unwrought spar, and estimated the length of the visible part to be fifty or sixty feet. Now Mr. W. D. PECK adds: “which the scaly surface and the dark colour of the animal would very much resemble”. I, however, take it that the animal swam with its body in a straight line, elevating its back but very little above the surface of the water, yet showing a length of fifty to sixty feet, and so the back of the neck and trunk quite covered with a mane resembling sea-weed, and the dark colour of the animal must have led Mr. STEPHAN TUCKEY to the comparison with an unwrought spar.

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