Part 70

“Sunds Parsonage, August 31, 1846.”

“On Saturday, the 8th. inst., in the course between the islands of Sartor Leer and Tös, a sea-monster, supposed to be a sea-serpent, was seen by several persons. Early on this day as the steamer Biörgvin passed through Rognefjord towing a vessel to Bergen, Daniel Salomonson, a cotter, saw a sea-monster, whose like he declares he never met with although accustomed to the sea and its inhabitants from his earliest years. The animal came swimming from Rognefjord in a westerly direction towards his dwelling at Grönnevigskioeset, in the northern part of the parish of Sund. The head appeared like a Foering boat (about twenty feet long) keel uppermost, and from behind it raised itself forward in three, and sometimes four and five undulations, each apparently about twelve feet long: its rate appeared to be that of a light boat rowed by four active men. When it reached Grönnevigskioeset at a distance of two rifle-shots it turned with considerable noise and continued its course towards Lundenoes. Later about eleven o’clock on the same day his wife Ingeborg, in Daniel’s absence, heard a loud noise in the sea, and she and two little children saw a great sea monster, such as described above, take a northerly course, close by their place at such a rate that the waves were dashed on the shore in the same way as when a steamer is passing by. Neither of them say that they saw anything like eyes or fins, or indeed anything projecting from its round form, but they declare that the colour of the animal was dark brown, and that it often rose up with gentle undulations, sometimes, however, sinking below the surface so that merely a stripe indicated the rapid course of the gigantic body.--On the same morning a lad, by name Abraham Abrahamsen Hagenoes, was out fishing in the Rognefjord, not far from Lundenoes, and just ready to throw out his line, when he, as he asserts, became aware that on about one hundred fathoms a monster with a head as large as a Foering boat (about twenty feet long) and a long body lay upon the sea like large kegs and was nearing his boat: seized with a panic he exerted all his strength to reach the shore, and as the animal, apparently following him, was only about forty fathoms off, he leaped ashore, drew up the boat and ran up the bank, whence he viewed the monster which had by this time approached the shore within twenty fathoms. He says that that part of the body which was visible was about sixty feet in length, and that its undulating course was similar to the eel: that the colour of the back was blackish, shining strongly, and as far as he could distinguish there was a whitish stripe under the belly.”

“Report also says that the sea-serpent was seen by several persons in Biornfjord causing a great deal of dread, but of this our informants want authentic accounts. Our informant further says that he has no reason whatever to doubt the truth of the story of the man and his wife, or the truthworthiness of the lad Abraham, except as far as that his fears may have caused him to see several things through a magnifying glass.”

I am convinced that by a head as large as a Foering boat (about twenty feet long) must be meant the head and a great part of the neck. The other characters are mere repetitions of what we have so often observed. Very interesting again is the statement of the lad that the animal had a white stripe “under the belly”. As the lad cannot have seen the proper belly of the animal, it must have been the throat; the boy thought that he saw a snake, and I think that he, being questioned, would tell me that a snake has a head, a trunk and a tail, and hardly any neck and throat. I am also convinced, that the boy has not seen with a magnifying glass: the measurements, he gives, are not exaggerated.

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In 1847, Mr. EDWARD NEWMANN, the Editor of the Zoologist had the courage to open the columns of his Journal to all kinds of reports and discussions about the great sea-serpent. He says (p. 1604):

“It has been the fashion for so many years to deride all records of this very celebrated monster, that it is not without hesitation I venture to quote the following paragraphs in his defence. A month only has elapsed since I had occasion to quote with approbation, a very marked passage from the pen of Sir J. W. Hershell (Zool. 1586): I may apply it with equal propriety to the enquiry of the era of the Irish deer, or of the existence of the Great Sea-Serpent. Naturalists, or rather those who choose thus to designate themselves, set up an authority above that of fact and observation, the gist of their enquiries is whether such things ought to be, and whether such things ought not to be; now fact-naturalists take a different road to knowledge, they enquire whether such things are and whether such things are not. The Zoologist, if not in itself the fountain-head of this fact movement, may at least claim to be the only public advocate of that movement; and it is therefore most desirable, that it should call the attention of its readers to the following remarkable paragraphs. They are quoted from one of our daily papers, which gives them as literal translations from the Norse papers, in which they originally appeared; the localities mentioned are intimately known to all travellers in Norway; and the witnesses are generally highly respectable and of unimpeachable veracity. The very discrepancies in the accounts prove the entire absence of any preconcerted scheme of deception. The only question therefore for the fact-naturalists to decide, is simply, whether all of the records now collected, can refer to whales, fishes, or any other marine animals with which we are at present acquainted.”

I have no reason to doubt Mr. NEWMAN’s veracity, and so I am willing to believe that the five reports which follow this introduction “are quoted from one of” the British “daily papers, which gives them as literal translations from the Norse papers, in which they originally appeared”. I only ask why Mr. NEWMANN did not mention the daily paper? For the assertion of this daily paper that they are “literal translations from Norse papers in which they originally appeared” is at all events a fabrication, as the reports which Mr. NEWMAN published here are the evidences which Mr. HEINRICH RATHKE took, when on a journey in Norway, near Christiansund, apparently in the year 1840, and which he published in the Archiv für Naturgeschichte of 1841, six years later! I have inserted them above (n°. 90, 91, 92, 94, 95, 102). As to the “discrepancies in the accounts” I have already showed that there are, in fact, hardly any discrepancies, but that the accounts complete one another. I must also observe here that the accounts are not translated literally. Many, and among them very interesting passages, are omitted. The reader, who will convince himself of the truth of my assertion, has only to compare the accounts, as they are inserted in the Zoologist with my translations of the German originals, or with the originals themselves.

Mr. GOSSE, too, in his Romance of Natural History, 1860, writes: “The public papers of Norway, during the summer of 1846, were occupied with statements of the following effect”, and he too publishes extracts from the evidences printed in the Archiv für Naturgeschichte of 1841!

Also Mr. LEE, in his Sea-Monsters Unmasked, 1883, says: “In 1847 there appeared in a London daily paper a long account translated from the Norse journals of fresh appearances of the sea-serpent.”

And Mr. JOHN ASHTON in his Curious Creatures in Zoology, 1889, asserts: “In 1847 a sea-serpent was seen frequently in the neighbourhood of Christiansund and Molde, by many persons, and by one Lars Johnöen, fisherman at Smölen, especially.”

All these writers have copied Mr. NEWMAN, and have therefore quite overlooked the fact that the originals were in the Archiv für Naturgeschichte of 1841, and that the appearances took place long before the year 1847!

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The last number of the Zoologist for 1847 appeared in October of that year. The reader must know that the matter of this journal is arranged according to the class of the animals, treated of in each article. This I must mention for the better understanding of the following passage which Mr. NEWMAN wrote in his preface to the above mentioned volume of the Zoologist.

“In Reptiles, the communications and quotations about “the Sea-Serpent” are well worthy of attentive perusal: it is impossible to suppose all the records bearing this title to be fabricated for the purpose of deception. A natural phenomenon of some kind has been witnessed: let us seek a satisfactory solution rather than terminate enquiry by the shafts of ridicule. The grave and learned have often avowed a belief that toads can exist some thousands of years without food, light or air, and immured in solid stone: surely it is not requiring too much to solicit a suspension of judgment on the question whether a monster may exist in the sea which does not adorn our collections.”

Mr. NEWMAN, viz. believed that the sea-serpent belonged to the class of Reptiles. The “communications and quotations” spoken of here, have already been inserted above (n°. 25, 90, 91, 92, 94, 95, 97, 102, 106 A, 115, 116, 117.).

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=118=.--1848, August 6.--No report of the sea-serpent has ever more shaken the incredulity of hundreds and thousands than that generally known as the account of the Daedalus, after the frigate from which the sea-serpent was seen.

The Times newspaper of October, 9, 1848, published the following paragraph:

“Intelligence from Plymouth, dated 7 Oct.”

“When the Daedalus frigate, Captain M’Quhae, which arrived at Plymouth on the 4th. instant, was on her passage home from the East Indies, between the Cape of Good Hope and St. Helena, her captain, and most of her officers and crew, at four o’clock one afternoon, saw a sea-serpent. The creature was twenty minutes in sight of the frigate, and passed under her quarter. Its head appeared to be about four feet out of the water, and there was about sixty feet of its body in a straight line on the surface. It is calculated that there must have been under water a length of thirty-three or forty feet more, by which it propelled itself at the rate of fifteen miles an hour. The diameter of the exposed part of the body was about sixteen inches; and when it extended its jaws, which were full of large jagged teeth, they seemed sufficiently capacious to admit of a tall man standing upright between them”.

The Admiralty instantly inquired into the truth of the statement, and in the Times of the 13th. the gallant captain’s official reply was published in the following terms:

“Her Majesty’s Ship Daedalus,

Hamoaze, Oct. 11.”

“Sir,--In reply to your letter of this date, requiring information as to the truth of a statement published in The Times newspaper, of a sea-serpent of extraordinary dimensions having been seen from Her Majesty’s ship Daedalus, under my command, on her passage from the East Indies, I have the honour to acquaint you, for the information of my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, that at five o’clock P. M., on the 6th. of August last, in latitude 24° 44′ S., and longitude 9° 22′ E., the weather dark and cloudy, wind fresh from the N. W., with a long ocean swell from the S. W., the ship on the port tack heading N. E. by N., something very unusual was seen by Mr. Sartoris, midshipman, rapidly approaching the ship from before the beam. The circumstance was immediately reported by him to the officer of the watch, Lieutenant Edgar Drummond, with whom and Mr. William Barrett, the master, I was at the time walking the quarterdeck. The ship’s company were at supper.”

“On our attention being called to the object, it was discovered to be an enormous serpent, with head and shoulders kept about four feet constantly above the surface of the sea, and, as nearly as we could approximate, by comparing it with the length of what our main-topsail yard would show in the water, there was at the very least sixty feet of the animal à fleur d’eau, no portion of which was, to our perception, used in propelling it through the water, either by vertical or horizontal undulation. It passed rapidly, but so close under our lee quarter, that had it been a man of my acquaintance, I should easily have recognized his features with the naked eye; and it did not, either in approaching the ship or after it had passed our wake, deviate in the slightest degree from its course to the S. W., which it held on at the pace of from twelve to fifteen miles per hour, apparently on some determined purpose.”

“The diameter of the serpent was about fifteen or sixteen inches behind the head, which was, without any doubt, that of a snake; and it was never, during the twenty minutes that it continued in sight of our glasses, once below the surface of the water; its colour a dark brown, with yellowish white about the throat. It had no fins, but something like a mane of a horse, or rather a bunch of seaweed, washed about its back. It was seen by the quartermaster, the boatswain’s mate, and the man at the wheel, in addition to myself and officers above-mentioned.”

“I am having a drawing of the serpent made from a sketch taken immediately after it was seen, which I hope to have ready for transmission to my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty by to-morrow’s post.”