Part 68

=107=.--1840, July?--In his Postscript Mr. RATHKE (Archiv für Naturgeschichte, 1841, Vol. I) says:

“According to a letter addressed to me by Dr. Hoffmann, a respectable physician in Molde, which is situated several miles south of Christiansund on one of the largest fjords, the school-inspector HAMMER, the adjunct KRAFT, and some other persons, who in 1840 made together an excursion in a boat on this fjord, saw very distinctly a so-called sea-serpent of considerable length.”

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=107 A=.--1840, August?--The Editor of the Journal du Havre before publishing Capt. D’ABNOUR’S report (n^o. 106 A) says, (see Zoologist, 1847, p. 1715):

“We shall preface his narrative by the remark, that the sea-serpent has been recently alleged to have been seen, at different points along the whole line of the American coast.”

The Editor would have done better if he had published all the reports of the sea-serpent, that had come within his reach. The reader must know that with the terms “the whole line of the American coast” the Editor can only have meant the east coast of British America and of the United States, from Newfoundland to Cape Canaveral, Florida.

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=108=.--1841.--In a Postscript to his paper (Archiv für Naturgeschichte, 1841, Vol. I) Mr. RATHKE tells us:

“According to a letter which I received some time ago from Mr. Soern Knutszon, a sea-serpent is again seen there some weeks after I had left Christiansund, by several persons.”

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The well known Mr. HEINRICH RATHKE in 1841 published in the Archiv für Naturgeschichte, 7th year, Vol. I, his dissertation “On the Sea-Serpent of the Norwegians”. I am obliged to give a translation of his paper:

“On a journey which I made through Norway I availed myself of the opportunity of making inquiries after a hitherto problematical and even doubted animal, the so-called sea-serpent (Soe Orm in the language of the Norwegians). The most favourable opportunity offered in Christiansund, in the neighbourhood of which this animal is said to have often been observed. The general notices which I received about the sea-serpent, agree in the following points: It is mostly seen in the larger fjords of Norway, but seldom in the open sea. In the fjord of Christiansund, which has such a considerable extent, manifold ramifications, and in which numerous islets are found, it appears almost every year. It is said to have been especially observed in that part of the fjord on which the village of Lorvig is situated. This only happens in the warmest part of the year, viz. in the dog days, and only then when the weather is quite still and the surface of the water smooth. When after its appearance the water is ruffled, however slightly, it immediately disappears. Great is the dread of it, so that in the dog days many fishermen, otherwise intrepid, don’t go far into the sea, without taking with them asa foetida, which is said to drive away the animal by its smell, when thrown into the water. Moreover the fishermen advise to be very quiet, when a sea-serpent approaches, and therefore rowing must be avoided, because the least noise attracts it still more.”

“To have, however, more accounts than those general ones which are spread amongst the people, I wrote to several persons who were said to have seen it with their own eyes. Some of them who at the request of SOEREN and WILHELM KNUDTSZON Brothers, two distinguished and very intelligent merchants, paid me a visit, I questioned personally; for others I had put down several questions to which I received a written answer. I will communicate here the result of my inquiry.”

Now Mr. RATHKE publishes the affidavits which I have inserted above (n^o. 90, 91, 92, 94, 95, 102), and his Postscript (see n^o. 107 and 108).

“If one” Mr. RATHKE goes on, “were to submit the above mentioned evidences to an inquiry, one would soon observe, that they not only contain several contradictory statements, but also that each evidence by itself cannot pretend to accuracy. Yet I believe, that we may at least admit so much of them, to be right, that what those persons who bear the evidences, took for a long animal, was really such a one. For I should not know, what could be the cause of the illusion, which had created the belief in such an animal. Some persons, as I know, believe that what has been taken for a so-called sea-serpent, was nothing else but a row of porpoises, swimming in a line. But all those persons by whom the above mentioned evidences are borne were too familiar with the sea, and had observed porpoises together too often to be deceived by a row of such animals swimming on the surface of the water. If this, however, had been the case, all the observations related to me of the sea-serpent holding its head above the surface, and about its size, must have been mere fictions, and this I cannot believe. According to all this, it evidently cannot be doubted that there is a long serpentine animal in the sea of Norway, which may grow to a considerable length.”

Now Mr. RATHKE weighs and considers to what kind of animals the sea-serpent may belong. This, however, we omit here, as we have partly discussed these views in our Chapter on Would-be Sea-Serpents, where we spoke of the Animal of Stronsa, and as we shall once more refer to it in our Chapter of Explanations.

Every one, I think, will agree with me, that Mr. RATHKE has committed two faults. 1. He criticises the correctness of the statements in question, apparently without having taken the trouble to read all that had been written about the subject. If he had done so, he would never have said that the particulars of the evidences collected by him in Norway were sometimes contradictory; on the contrary, he would have observed that they completed one another! 2. He was the first scientific man and zoologist who had an opportunity to see the sea-serpent, probably even to kill it, and yet he returns to Germany without having made one single effort either to kill or to see it!

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Immediately after Mr. HEINRICH RATHKE’S dissertation, the Editor of the Archiv für Naturgeschichte, the well-known Prof. Dr. W. F. ERICHSON, wrote a paper, in which he gave full details of the Animal of Stronsa and descriptions of the saved bones. He ends this extract with the words:

“Consequently the Animal of Stronsa has no relation at all with the sea-serpent of the Norwegians; the animal, however, seen by the Rev. Maclean” (n^o. 31) “might be considered as such an animal.”

These words convince me of the fact that Mr. ERICHSON, like Mr. RATHKE firmly believed that there are in the Norwegian seas animals still unknown to them, which are called “sea-serpents”.

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=109=.--1842?--(Times, Nov. 4, 1848).--

“A parish priest residing on Romsdal fjord, about two days journey south of Drontheim, an intelligent person, whose veracity I have no reason to doubt, gave me a circumstantial account of one, which he had himself seen. It rose within 30 yards of the boat in which he was, and swam parallel with it for a considerable time. Its head he described as equalling a small cask in size, and its mouth, which it repeatedly opened and shut, was furnished with formidable teeth; its neck was smaller, but its body--of which he supposed that he saw about half on the surface of the water--was not less in girth than that of a moderate sized horse.” (Part of a letter from “OXONIENSIS”).--

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=110=.--1842?--“Another gentleman, in whose house I stayed, had also seen one, and gave a similar account of it: it also came near his boat upon the fjord, when it was fired at, upon which it turned and pursued them to the shore, which was luckily near, when it disappeared” (Also a part of the letter from OXONIENSIS, Times, Nov. 4, 1848).

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=111=.--1843, Summer.--In FRORIEP’S Neue Notizen, Vol. XXVIII, n^o. 606, p. 184, Nov. 1843, we read: