Part 54

For this is firmly believed by the Committee!

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Prof. W. D. PECK in his dissertation on the Sea-Serpent (Mem. Am. Acad. Arts Sc. Vol. IV. Pt. I, 1818) says:

“The testimony is ample of the existence of such a serpent, in the portion of the Atlantic which washes our shores.”

After having mentioned some early accounts Prof. PECK says:

“These are the earliest notices I can find of this animal on our shores, and their truth is rendered undubitable by the evidence lately brought together by the Committee of the Linnaean Society, of men of fair and unblemished character in Gloucester.”

After having given an extract from these evidences, Prof. PECK says:

“The accounts of all these persons are very consistent; to the greater part it appeared to be straight, or without gibbosities or protuberances on the back; one person thought it had protuberances, but it seems probable that the upper flexures of its undulations occasioned this opinion.”

“Its velocity is variously estimated; by some it was thought to move a mile in a minute, by others in three, four, or five minutes. It has great lateral flexibility, as is shewn by its turning short and moving in an exactly contrary direction, advancing the head in a line parallel with the body; hence its undulations when under water and equally surrounded by the medium, may be either vertical or horizontal at the will of the animal. The judgment of its velocity, however, without knowing its precise distance and without instruments to observe it, is extremely liable to err.”

“In the testimonies above referred to, the imagination seems to have had no influence, and we certainly know from them, that the existence of the animal to which they relate is indisputable; we know that it moves by vertical undulations, at least while near the surface of the sea; that it is laterally as flexible as other serpents; and that its motion, at times, is very swift; but our knowledge is circumscribed by these limits. It is to be hoped, that if it again visits our shores, some successful means may be devised of taking it and presenting an opportunity of completing our knowledge of so interesting a link in the chain of animated beings.”

“It has been seen in Long Island sound, progressing southward; it seems from this circumstance to be migratory, like the Coluber natrix in Hungary, and may pass the winter season in Mexico or South America.”

A remarkable fact is it that Prof. PECK really believes that it was a sea-snake of enormous dimensions!

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The Journal of Science and the Arts, edited at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, republished in its fourth Vol. (London, 1818) the affidavits of Messrs. LONSON NASH and WILLIAM B. PEARSON, (n^o. 41, p. 170, and n^o. 44, p. 177) and the writer of the article declares: “the existence of the animal is placed beyond doubt.” Now we are in 1892, and yet it is doubted!

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=52=.--1818 June.--(Quart. Journ. Sc. Litt. Arts R. Inst. Gr. Britt. VI, 1818.)

“The Commercial Advertiser of June 9th. contains a letter from a Captain of the brig Wilson, of Salem, bound to Norfolk, wherein he states, that during his passage, off Cape Henry, he fell in with, as he at first supposed, the wreck of a vessel, when he ordered his boat to be lowered; but to his great astonishment he found it to be the sea-serpent; he says, he then examined it, and such an object he never before witnessed; he believed it to be 190 feet in length, and its mouth and head were of an enormous size. After returning to the ship they bore off, fearing the consequences that might result from its coming in contact with the vessel.”

The only characters mentioned here are the enormous head and the length of about 190 feet. Both may be exaggerated though greater dimensions are mentioned in later trustworthy reports.

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=53=.--1818, June 19.--(Quart. Journ. Sc. Litt. Arts R. Inst. Gr. Brit. VI, 1818).--

“On the 19th of June he appeared in Sag-Harbour, and rewards were offered to the whalers to secure it.”

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=54=.--1818, June 21.--(Ibidem).

“S. West, of Hallowell, master of the Packet Delia, describes it as seen on the 21st. of June, engaged with a whale.”

The writer does not mean to say that it was a whale-bone-whale or a sperm-whale, but a whale of the smaller kind, viz. a dolphin, a grampus, or a porpoise. We shall come across an account stating that the eye-witnesses saw a panic amongst a shoal of porpoises, evidently caused by a sea-serpent pursuing them (n^o. 97); and across another account, stating that a sea-serpent was seen seizing a porpoise in one of its lateral fins (n^o. 151). It is evident that when the opportunity offers, a sea-serpent also preys on the grampuses, porpoises and dolphins.

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=55=.--1818 July 2.--(Ibidem).

“and on July 2d. two persons, J. Webber and R. Hamilton, saw it about seven miles from Portland, between Cranch Island point and Marsh-Island.”