Part 79

“3. That of Captain Beechy, who saw something similar from the Blossom” (n^o. 104).

“4. That of Mr. Morries Stirling, who saw it in a Norwegian fjord” (n^o. 113).

“5. That of Mr. Davidson, who saw it from the Royal Saxon, in 1829” (n^o. 93).

“6. That of Captain Steele and others, who saw it from the Barham, in 1852.” (See our Chapter on Would-Be Sea-Serpents, 1852, August 28).

“7. That of Captain Harrington and his officers, who saw it from the Castilian, 1857” (n^o. 131).

To our great astonishment Mr. Gosse also alludes to n^o. 6: That of Captain STEELE, who saw it from the Barham, in 1852. Some pages before, Mr. Gosse himself throws great doubt on this report, believing that the animal seen by Captain STEELE and his officers was a scabbard-fish, (the reader, I hope, will take the trouble to look up the report of 1852, August 28, in my Chapter on Would-Be Sea-Serpents, to read there again Mr. GOSSE’S own opinion of this report), and now he uses this report amongst others to examine to which of the recognized classes of created beings this rover of the ocean can be referred!

Now Mr. GOSSE passes to this inquiry: first, he asks, is it an animal at all? And he comes to the conclusions that this must be so, for else the being could not move with that astonishing rapidity. Further he examines the sea-weed hypothesis, the seal-hypothesis, &c., and winds up with: “my own confident persuasion, that there exists some oceanic animal of immense proportions, which has not yet been received into the category of scientific zoology; and my strong opinion, that it possesses close affinities with the fossil Enaliosauria of the lias.”

All the above-mentioned views will be considered in Chapter V.

To our great surprise we see that Mr. NEWMAN, the editor of the Zoologist, who ever was a warm defender of the sea-serpent, and like Mr. GOSSE firmly believed that there are still living Plesiosauri, is of another opinion in 1860. In this year, a very large riband fish was captured on the Bermuda Isles. Three descriptions of this fish appeared in the Zoologist (p. 6934, p. 6986, p. 6989), the last by Mr. NEWMAN himself, who, thinking that it was a new species, gave it the name of Regalecus Jonesii. The second description was by Mr. JONES, the naturalist on the Bermudas, at whose deposal the fish was placed by Mr. TRIMINGHAM, the captor. Mr. JONES, after his description, points out some striking peculiarities, which this riband-fish and the sea-serpent seen by captain M’QUHAE, had in common, and concludes that a part of the reports of the great sea-serpent must have been caused by the appearance of riband fishes. Now, Mr. NEWMAN, after the description of his new species Regalecus Jonesii, as I have already said, seems to waver in his opinion, for he adds:

“In reference to the last question mooted by Mr. JONES, the similarity of Regalecus Jonesii to Capt. M’QUHAE’S sea-serpent, I do not consider myself competent to express an opinion. I am quite willing for the present to allow every sea-serpent to hold on its own course; hereafter a better opportunity may be afforded on comparing and arranging the conflicting evidence already published in the “Zoologist.”

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=133=, =134=.--1861? August.--(Zoologist, 1862, p. 7850).--

“On a Sunday afternoon, in the middle of August, above a hundred persons, at that time in and about the hotel, were called on to observe an extraordinary appearance in the sea, at no great distance from the shore. Large shoals of small fish were rushing landwards in great commotion, leaping from the water, crowding on each other, and showing all the common symptoms of flight from the pursuit of some wicked enemy. I had already more than once remarked this appearance from the rocks, but in a minor degree; and on these occasions I could always distinguish the shark, whose ravages among the “manhaidens” was the cause of such alarm. But the particular case in question was far different from those. The pursuer of the fugiting shoals soon became visible; and that it was a huge marine monster, stretching to a length quite beyond the dimensions of an ordinary fish, was evident to all observers. No one, in short, had any doubt as to its being the sea-serpent, or one of the species to which the animal or animals so frequently before seen belonged. The distance at which this one was, for ten minutes or a quarter of an hour, visible, made it impossible to give a description of its apparent dimensions so accurate as to carry conviction to the sceptical. For us who witnessed it, it was enough to be convinced that the thing was a reality. But one of the spectators, Dr. Amos Binney, a gentleman of scientific attainments, drew up a minute account of it, which is deposited in the archives of one of the Philosophical Societies of Boston. I was and am quite satisfied that on this occasion I had a partial and indistinct but positive view of this celebrated nondescript; but had the least doubt rested on my mind it would have been entirely removed by the event of the day following the one just recorded. On that day, a little before noon, my wife was sitting, as was her wont, reading on the upper piazza of the hotel. She was alone. The gentlemen, including myself and my son, were, as usual, absent at Boston, and the ladies were scattered in various directions. She was startled by a cry from the house of “The sea-serpent! the sea-serpent!” But this had been so frequent, by the way of joke, since the event of the preceding day, and was so like “The wolf! the wolf!” of the fable, that it did not attract her particular attention for a moment or two, until she observed two women belonging to the family of the hotel keeper running along the piazza towards the corner nearest the sea, with wonder in their eyes, and the cry of “The serpent! the serpent! he is turning! he is turning!” spontaneously bursting from their lips. Then my wife did fix her looks in the direction they ran; and sure enough she saw, apparently quite close beyond the line formed by the rising ground above the rocks, a huge serpent, gliding gracefully through the waves, having evidently performed the action of turning round. In an instant it was in a straight line, moving rapidly on; and after coasting for a couple of minutes the north west front of the hotel, and (as accurately as the astonished observer could calculate) looking as it stretched at full-length about the length of the piazza,--that is to say, about ninety feet,--it sank quietly beneath the surface, and was seen no more. The person who was thus so lucky as to get this unobstructed view is one so little liable to be led astray by any imaginary impulse, that I may reckon on her statement with entirely as much confidence as if my own eyes had demonstrated its truth.”--Grattan’s Civilized America, p. 39.--

Mr. NEWMAN, the editor of the Zoologist, ought to have mentioned the writer of the article, the date of it and the locality where the appearance took place. It was most probably Nahant, the well known watering place near Lynn, Mass. I have had no opportunity to consult GRATTAN’s Civilized America, therefore I have placed the note of interrogation after the above-mentioned year.

In this report only a few words are devoted to the description of the animal, yet the description itself is given as well as possible by the lady who saw it from the upper piazza of the hotel.

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=135=.--1863, May 16th.--(Zoologist, 1863, p. 8727).

“The following is a copy of a letter from an officer of the African mail steamer Athenian, addressed to a gentleman in this town:--“African Royal Mail Screw Steamer Athenian, Cape Palmas, May, 16, 1863.--My dear Sir,--All doubts may now be set at rest about the great sea-serpent. On the 6th. of May the African Royal Mail Steam Ship Athenian on her passage from Teneriffe to Bathurst, fell in with one. At about 7 a. m. John Chapple, quartermaster, at the wheel, saw something floating towards the ship. He called the attention of the Rev. Mr. Smith and another passenger, who were on deck at the time, to it. On nearing the steamer it was discovered to be a large snake about 100 feet long, of a dark brown colour, head and tail out of water, the body slightly under. On its head was something like a mane or sea-weed. The body was about the size of our mainmast. You are at liberty to publish this.”

The reader will observe that this too is a very insignificant description, but it mentions one of the very few cases that the tail of the animal was visible above the surface of the water.

The same report was published in the Illustrated London News of 1863, June, 13.--

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=136=.--1871.--(G. VERSCHUUR, Eene reis om de wereld in vier honderd tachtig dagen).--After an appearance of a would-be sea-serpent on board the Grenada, which caused a dispute between those who saw it and those who were not so fortunate,

“the second officer, who joined in the quarrel, declared to have seen in 1871, near the coast of Australia a sea-serpent, which was several meters in length.”

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=137=, =138=, =139=, =140=.--1872, August 20th., 21st., 23d. and 24th.--In the Zoologist of May 1873, p. 3517, the following statements of high respectable gentlemen are published.

“Appearance of an Animal, believed to be that which is called the Norwegian Sea-Serpent, on the Western Coast of Scotland, in August, 1872. By the Rev. John Macrae, Minister of Glenelg, Invernesshire, and the Rev. David Twopeny, Vicar of Stockbury, Kent.”

“On the 20th. of August, 1872, we started from Glenelg in a small cutter, “the Leda”, for an excursion to Lochourn. Our party consisted, besides ourselves, of two ladies, F. and K., a gentleman G. B., and a Highland lad. Our course lay down the Sound of Sleat, which on that side divides the Isle of Skye from the mainland, the average of breadth of the Channel in that part being two miles. It was calm and sunshiny, not a breath of air, and the sea perfectly smooth. As we were getting the cutter along with oars we perceived a dark mass about two hundred yards astern of us, to the north. While we were looking at it with our glasses (we had three on board) another similar black lump rose to the left of the first, leaving an interval between; then an other and an other followed, all in regular order. We did not doubt its being one living creature: it moved slowly across our wake, and disappeared. Presently the first mass, which was evidently the head, reappeared, and was followed by the rising of the other black lumps, as before. Sometimes three appeared, sometimes four, five, or six, and then sank again. When they rose, the head appeared first, if it had been down, and the lumps rose after it in regular order, beginning always with that, next the head, and rising gently; but when they sank, they sank all together, rather abruptly, sometimes leaving the head visible. It gave the impression of a creature crooking up its back to sun itself. There was no appearance of undulation: when the lumps sank, other lumps did not rise in the intervals between them. The greatest number we counted was seven, making eight with the head, as shown in the sketch N^o. 1. The parts were separated from each other by intervals of about their own length, the head being rather smaller and flatter than the rest, and the nose being very slightly visible above the water; but we did not see the head raised above the surface either this or the next day, nor could we see the eye. We had no means of measuring the length with any accuracy, but taking the distance from the centre of one lump to the centre of the next to be six feet, and it could scarcely be less, the whole length of the portion visible, including the intervals submerged, would be forty-five feet.”

“Presently, as we were watching the creature, it began to approach us rapidly, causing a great agitation in the sea. Nearly the whole of the body, if not all of it, had now disappeared, and the head advanced at a great rate in the midst of a shower of fine spray, which was evidently raised in some way by the quick movement of the animal--it did not appear how,--and not by spouting. F. was alarmed and retreated to the cabin, crying out that the creature was coming down upon us. When within about a hundred yards of us it sank and moved away in the direction of Skye, just under the surface of the water, for we could trace its course by the waves it raised on the still sea to the distance of a mile or more. After this it continued at intervals to show itself, careering about at a distance, as long as we were in that part of the Sound, the head and a small part only of the body being visible on the surface; but we did not again on that day see it so near nor so well as at first. At one time F. and K. and G. B. saw a fin striking up at a little distance back from the head, but neither of us were then observing.”