Part 84

“We are indebted to Lieut. W. P. Haynes, of H. M. S. Osborne, for the sketch of the sea-monster seen by the officers and crew of that vessel off the north coast of Sicily on the 2nd. inst. In a letter accompanying the sketch, he says:--“My attention was first called by seeing a long row of fins appearing above the surface of the water at a distance of about 200 yards and “away on our beam”. They were of irregular heights, and extending about 30 or 40 feet in line (the former number is the length I gave, the latter the other officers), in a few seconds they disappeared, giving place to the foremost part of the monster. By this time it had passed astern, swimming in an opposite direction to that we were steering, and as we were passing through the water at 10¹⁄₂ knots, I could only get a view of it, “and on”, which I have shown in the sketch. The head was bullet-shaped, and quite six feet thick, the neck narrow and its head was occasionally thrown back out of the water, remaining there for a few seconds at a time. It was very broad across the back or shoulders, about 15 or 20 feet, and the flappers appeared to have a semi-revolving motion, which seemed to paddle the monster along. They were about 15 feet in length. From the top of the head to the part of the back where it became immersed, I should consider 50 feet, and that seemed about a third of the whole length. All this part was smooth, resembling a seal. I cannot account for the fins, unless they were on the back below, where it was immersed.”

According to Mr. HENRY LEE a Mr. FRANK BUCKLAND has suggested (where? this is not mentioned) that “the ridge of dorsal fins might, possibly, belong to four basking sharks, swimming in line, in close order.” Mr. LEE himself seems to be of this opinion too. As to me, I don’t believe it, for the simple reason that the basking sharks only live in the Arctic Sea, and are never observed farther south than the coasts of Great-Britain and of Massachusetts. So Mr. FRANK BUCKLAND’S whole supposition falls to the ground. At all events the fins have nothing to do with the sea-serpent. This is also the opinion of Mr. LEE, who asserts: “The combination of them with long flippers, and the turtle-like mode of swimming, forms a zoological enigma which I am unable to solve.”

We will first speak of the account Lieutenant HAYNES wrote on the 6th. of June, when at Gibraltar. The sea was perfectly smooth, and he saw the ridge of fins. He took his glasses and instead of fins he distinctly saw something quite different. In the short time that he fixed his glasses, the ridge of fins had no doubt disappeared, and the huge animal emerged. The owners of the fins were evidently frightened at the approach of the sea-serpent. Lieut. HAYNES “distinctly saw a head, two flappers, and about thirty feet of an animal’s shoulder”. We may safely add: and a long neck connecting this head with the shoulder, and we may safely read for shoulder: a part of its back. The head was about six feet thick, the neck narrower, about four or five feet; consequently the animal had stretched its neck as forward as possible. The back, on the level of the flappers, was about fifteen feet broad, “and the flappers each about fifteen feet in length. The movements of the flappers were those of a turtle.” I should like to say: were those of a sea-lion, for a sea-turtle cannot possibly elevate its flappers so high above the surface of the water, while sea-lions are able to do so. Moreover the fashion is the same, that is to say, the paddling happens alternately, i. e. when the right flapper is brought as forward as possible to commence the act of paddling, the left one is kept as backward as possible, nearly touching the trunk, having just brought the act of paddling to an end. “The animal resembled a huge seal, the resemblance being strongest about the back of the head.” This is in my opinion the most remarkable statement of this report. We have more than once met with the comparison of the head or face of the animal with that of a seal, but Lieutenant HAYNES clearly states the animal (seen from behind) resembled a seal. “I could not see the length of the head, but from its crown or top to just below the shoulder (where it became immersed) I should reckon about fifty feet.” Going by known descriptions and figures, we may suppose that the length of the head may have been between eight and nine feet. When from the top of the head to just below the shoulder the length is estimated at about fifty feet, I reckon that the neck of the animal must have been one of forty feet, reckoning two feet from the top of the head to the occiput, and eight feet from the flappers to where the animal became immersed, i. e. the visible part of its back. The estimated measurements of the individual of captain M’QUHAE (n^o. 118) were: length of the head about three feet, breadth about two feet; diameter of neck below the head about one foot and a third; length of the neck to the fore-flappers about twenty feet; length of the trunk from the fore-flappers to the hind-flappers about twenty feet, length of the tail about forty feet, length of the whole animal between eighty and ninety feet. Let us now repeat those of the individual of the Osborne, which seems to be about three times larger. The breadth of the head is about six feet, consequently the length of the head about nine feet; the diameter of the neck below the head about four or five feet, say four feet, i. e. three times one foot and a third; the distance from the occiput to the flappers--forty feet, according to my calculation given above but,--comparing the dimensions of the individual of Captain M’QUHAE with the present, I don’t hesitate a moment to put down sixty feet for the distance from the head to the fore-flappers. The officers of the Daedalus were in a more favourable situation to estimate this distance, the distance from the fore-flappers to the hind-flappers and the whole length of the animal they saw,--than Lieutenant HAYNES; for the former saw the animal from aside, whilst the latter beheld it from behind, and was consequently in a bad situation to estimate the different lengths of the animal, but in a more favourable to estimate its different breadths. The length of the neck must really have been formidable, for though the animal (see drawing) showed hardly any neck at all, (resembling an enormous ball just visible above the surface of the water, with another smaller bullet on its top,) Lieutenant HAYNES estimated the distance from the top of the head to the part of its back, where it became immersed, at fifty feet! The remaining part of the back and the animal’s tail and hind-flappers were entirely invisible. I have already expressed my firm conviction that the ridge of fins has nothing at all to do with the animal. It is evident that Lieutenant HAYNES himself had his doubts about this point, for else he would not have written: “unless the ridge of fins....... were really the continuation of the shoulder to the end of the object’s body”. Evidently the animal elevated its head from time to time some feet into the air to take a survey before it. Evidently it never dropped its head so as to come with its nostrils below water, for “there was an entire absence of blowing or spouting”.

In the account of the Times only the following sentences are interesting. The ridge of fins moved slowly along. They were replaced by the foremost part of a sea-serpent. In my opinion this statement is very correct. Its skin was altogether devoid of scales, appearing rather to resemble in sleekness that of a seal. This is a remarkable statement, for in the foregoing account the animal is said to resemble a huge seal! Again: the head was bullet-shaped (seen from behind) with an elongated termination (read snout) being somewhat similar in form to that of a seal, and was about six feet in diameter. The assertion of one of the officers who saw the animal’s features and described them as like those of an alligator, cannot surprise us, as this comparison has been made more than once. As much of the body as could be seen was developed in form like that of a gigantic turtle. Evidently this reporter did not observe that the head and trunk were connected by a long neck, as did Lieutenant HAYNES. I cannot approve of the supposition that the animal would have been started by the volcanic disturbance, which took place a hundred miles more southward and a fortnight ago!!

The rough account of the Portsmouth Times and Naval Gazette partly reprinted in the Graphic, is as the reader will already have observed himself, for the greater part, wrong: the fins of the ridge were estimated to be from five to six feet high, and not 15 feet in length. They were never seen along the back. Lieutenant HAYNES clearly doubted of it, and I believe that nobody of my readers will admit the possibility of such a position! It was the ridge of fins that moved slowly, and not the animal. Though it is not expressed in words, the figure shows us that the sea-serpent moved with the greatest velocity, paddling so violently, that it lifted up its flappers as high as possible.

In the letter which Lieutenant HAYNES forwarded to the Editor of the Graphic, we read that the animal passed the stern, swimming in an opposite direction to that they were steering to; consequently the animal could have been seen for a few seconds only from aside, and then only from behind. Most probably in passing the yacht, the animal turned its face once towards it, for we read in the Times of 14th. June: “its features were seen only by one officer.” The breadth of the back is now stated to be about 15 or 20 feet. “The flappers appeared to have a semi-revolving motion,” which is indeed a nearly exact expression for this motion. The length of 50 feet is now considered by the gallant officer to seem to be about a third of the whole length. The reason of this estimation is not mentioned; probably it was the rippling of the water behind the back of the animal, which led to it. I firmly believe that this individual was more than two hundred feet in length. Again, the Lieutenant seems not to have had the least idea of what could have been the ridge of fins! No wonder!

Of the second sketch (fig. 45) I will only say that it is partly wrong; for only one flapper must have been visible at one time, though it may be that the animal was paddling with such a rapidity that it seemed as if the two flappers were visible together. And when seen from aside in this position it would appear that the animal had more than two flappers, had a row of them, as is shown in our fig. 36.--It is also clear that the severe splashing and foaming of the water, which must have been caused by the movements of the flappers, is omitted in the figure.

Mr. ANDREW WILSON in his Leisure Time Studies notes that the details furnished in the account of the Times appear to be explicable by a tape-fish (Gymnetrus or Regalecus). I need not say that I am not at all at one with him. There is not one simple character either in the ridge of fins, or in the animal described, which agrees in the least with that of a tape-fish! Moreover tape-fishes are deep-sea fishes, and only rise to the surface, dying or dead!

Mr. SEARLES V. WOOD, JUN’S comparison of the animal with a manatee (Nature, 1880, Nov. 18) is better at first view, but the length of the neck, the form of the flappers and the dimensions of both animals differ in such a degree, that it is superfluous to dwell any longer on it.

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In January 1879, Mr. ANDREW WILSON published his Leisure Time Studies, a very interesting and captivating book. His fifth chapter is entitled “The sea-serpents of Science”. As might be expected the author treats of the various explanations of the sea-serpent given by men of science as well as by others, and declares himself to be a firm believer of the fact that large unknown animals exist. I wish to quote here the most interesting parts, or better said, those parts which are, at present, of great interest. In considering the authenticity of the reports and the admission that really “something” must have been seen, the author says:

“Can we, after perusing the mass of evidence accumulated during past years, dismiss the subject simpliciter, as founded on no basis of fact? The answer to such a question must be an emphatic negative; since the evidence brought before our notice includes the testimony of several hundreds of sane and reasonable persons, who in frequent cases have testified on oath and by affidavit to the truth of their descriptions of curious marine forms, seen and observed in various seas. The second supposition, that all of these persons have simply been deceived, is one which must also be dismissed. For, after making all due allowance for exaggeration, and for variations in accounts arising from different modes of expression and even from mental peculiarities in the witnesses, there remains a solid body of testimony, which, unless there is some special tendency to mendacity on the part of persons who travel by sea, we are bound, by all the rules of fair criticism and of evidence, to receive as testimony of honest kind. As I have elsewhere observed: There are very many calmly and circumstantially related and duly verified accounts of serpentine, or at any rate, of anomalous marine forms, having been closely inspected by the crew and passengers of vessels. Either, therefore, we must argue that in every instance the senses of intelligent men and women must have played them false, or we must simply assume that they are describing what they have never seen. The accounts in many instances so minutely describe the appearance of such forms, inspected from a near standpoint, that the possibility of their being mistaken for inanimate objects, as they might be if viewed from a distance, is rendered entirely improbable. We may thus, then, affirm firstly that there are many verified pieces of evidence on record, of strange marine forms having been met with,--which evidences, judged according to ordinary and common sense rules, go to prove that certain hitherto undescribed marine organisms do certainly exist in the sea-depths.”

“The first issue I must therefore submit to the reader, as representing one of a large and impartial jury, is, that the mass of evidence accumulated on the sea-serpent question, when weighed and tested, even in a prima facie manner, plainly shuts us up to the belief that appearances, resembling those produced by the presence in the sea of huge serpentine forms, have been frequently noted by competent and trustworthy observers. Unless we are to believe that men and women have deliberately prevaricated, and that without the slightest excuse or show of reason, we must believe that they have witnessed marine appearances, certainly of unwonted and unusual kind. That “something” has assuredly been seen, must be the verdict on this first issue. What that “something” is or was, and whether or not the evidence will support the opinion that the appearances described bear out the existence of a “sea-serpent” in the flesh, form points for discussion in the next instance.”

Mr. ANDREW WILSON mentions some pages further on a curious case of fear of popular ridicule in telling that

“one ship-captain related that when a sea-serpent had been seen by his crew from the deck of the vessel, he remained below; since, to use his own words, “had I said I had seen the sea-serpent, I should have been considered to be a warranted liar all my life after!”

In examining whether that “something” was a dead or living organism, Mr. WILSON concludes that:

“Numerous cases exist in which the object, presumed to be a living being, has been scrutinized so closely that, save on the supposition that senses have played their owners false, or that minds have given way to an unaccountable impulse for lying, we must face and own the belief that living animals have been seen.”

He now speaks of a few accounts, viz. the various reports of the animal seen by the officers of the Daedalus (n^o. 118), by the crew of the Pauline (n^o. 144, 145), and by the captain and the surgeon of the Nestor (n^o. 146), and explains them in his own way, believing that these sea-serpents were gigantically developed sea-snakes, or a great calamary. Next he treats of the appearance of the animal as reported by the officers of the Osborne (n^o. 148), explaining it to be a tape-fish. Finally he defends his hypothesis of gigantically developed sea-snakes and ribbon-fishes. These parts, however, I have inserted in my Chapter on various explanations.

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In a review of Mr. ANDREW WILSON’S Leisure Time Studies, which I have found in Nature of the 30th. of January, 1879, Vol. XIX, the following is written about the chapter on the sea-serpent:

“The lecture on “The Sea-Serpents of Science” is interesting, both as giving a very fair summary of the most recent evidence on this subject, and as showing that the age of incredulity is past, and that naturalists are now prepared to admit that several distinct kinds of oceanic monsters probably exist, of which no single specimen has yet been obtained. Recollecting, however, the number of clever hoaxes to which this subject has given rise we think that the newspaper account at p. 104, of the declaration before a Liverpool J. P., made by the master and crew of a merchant-ship, to the effect that they had seen a huge serpent twice coiled round a sperm-whale, and a similar serpent with its head raised “sixty feet perpendicularly in the air,” should not have been inserted as evidence without first ascertaining that such a declaration was actually made before the magistrate named. The troubling of writing a single letter would probably have been sufficient, and would have settled the preliminary question of whether, from beginning to end, it was not a newspaper canard.”

I am convinced that, after having attentively read what they find in this book about the appearance of the sea-serpent as seen by the crew of the Pauline (n^o. 144, 145) my readers will be convinced that the report of Captain DREVAR was not a canard. We read moreover in Nature of Febr. 10, 1881, that Captain DREVAR has circulated a printed account of the conflict which he witnessed, and of the subsequent appearance of the animal rearing its long neck out of the water. Mr. WOOD, the writer of the article in which this is communicated, adds: “This is satisfactory as showing that the declaration was no hoax”. I quite agree with him.

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=149=.--1879, January 28.--The Graphic of April, 19, 1879, says:

“The following is an extract from the account given by our correspondent, Major H. W. J. Senior, of the Bengal Staff Corps, to whom we are indebted for the sketch from which our engraving is taken:--“On the 28th. of January, 1879, at about 10 a. m., I was on the poop deck of the steamship City of Baltimore in lat. 12° 28′ N., long 43° 52′ E. I observed a long black object abeam of the ship’s stern on the starboard side, at a distance of about three-quarters of a mile, darting rapidly out of the water, and splashing in again with a sound distinctly audible, and advancing nearer and nearer at a rapid pace. In a minute it had advanced to within half a mile, and was distinctly recognizable as the veritable “sea-serpent”. I shouted out “Sea-serpent! sea-serpent! call the captain!” Dr. C. Hall, the ship’s surgeon, who was reading on deck, jumped up in time to see the monster, as did also Miss. Greenfield, one of the passengers on board. By this time it was only about 500 yards off, and a little in the rear, owing to the vessel then steaming at the rate of about ten knots an hour in a westerly direction. On approaching the wake of the ship the serpent turned its course a little away, and was soon lost to view in the blaze of sunlight reflected on the waves of the sea. So rapid were its movements that when it approached the ship’s wake, I seized a telescope, but could not catch a view as it darted rapidly out of the field of the glass before I could see it. I was thus prevented from ascertaining whether it had scales or not but the best view of the monster obtainable when it was about three cables’ length, that is about 500 yards’ distant, seemed to show that it was without scales. I cannot, however, speak with certainty. The head and neck, about two feet in diameter, rose out of the water to a height of about twenty or thirty feet, and the monster opened its jaws wide as it rose, and closed them again as it lowered its head and darted forward for a dive, reappearing almost immediately some hundred yards ahead. The body was not visible at all, and must have been some depth under water, as the disturbance on the surface was too slight to attract notice, although occasionally a splash was seen at some distance behind the head. The shape of the head was not unlike pictures of the dragon I have often seen, with a bull-dog appearance of the forehead and eyebrow. When the monster had drawn its head sufficiently out of the water it let itself drop, as it were, like a huge log of wood, prior to darting forward under the water. This motion caused a splash of about fifteen feet in height on either side of the neck, much in shape of a pair of wings.”

“Major Senior’s statement is countersigned by the two persons whom he mentions as co-witnesses, and he expresses his willingness to answer any questions which may be put to him by any one interested in the subject. His address while on furlough is Rosebank Villa, Southfield Rode, Cotham, Bristol.”

The appearance took place in the Gulf of Aden, as pointed out by the latitude and longitude. The account here is very correct as I now will try to show. The colour of the animal is called black and the appearance of the skin was that it was without scales. The head and neck, about two feet in diameter, rose out of the water to a height of about twenty or thirty feet, and the animal opened its jaws wide as it rose, evidently swallowing some fish, captured under water in its pursuit of a shoal of them, and closed them again as it lowered its head and darted forward for a dive, reappearing almost immediately some hundred yards ahead. The body was not visible at all, and must have been some depth under water, as the disturbance on the surface was too slight to attract notice. This is very natural, as I have already pointed out on a former occasion: if the head and neck are above the surface, the remaining parts of the body must carry their weight and sink a little below the surface. Not very much, however, for the foreflappers, as well as the hindflappers, paddling very rapidly caused a splash distinctly visible on the base of the neck (or on the shoulders), and “occasionally a splash was seen at some distance behind the head”. Examining the figure, which is very exact, we may take it that the foremost splash was caused by the foreflappers, about twenty-five feet in the rear of the head, the very same place where the officers of the Daedalus (n^o. 118) “occasionally saw a fin”, and that about twenty-five feet more backward the hindmost splash was caused by the hindflappers, the place, where Captain M’QUHAE (n^o. 118) “occasionally saw another fin”. The animal seen from the Daedalus seems to have been a little smaller than that seen from the City of Baltimore. The comparison of the head with a dragon’s is a little far-fetched. The animal furiously pursuing its prey, sometimes opening its jaws, knitting its heavy eye-brows, which as we know are a little prominent, in short, expressing in its features hurry and a wild longing for its prey, may under these circumstances have had a feature terrible enough to cause Mr. SENIOR’S expression “the shape of the head was not unlike pictures of the dragons I have often seen, with a bull-dog appearance of the fore-head and eye-brow”. We have learned already that on such occasions the animal curved its neck swan-like and diving head foremost like a duck, disappeared. Here we have another habit of pursuing: “when the monster had drawn its head sufficiently out of water it let itself drop, as it were, like a huge log of wood, prior to darting forward under the water. This motion caused a splash of about fifteen feet in height on either side of the neck, much in shape of a pair of wings”. This last might have been fairly omitted as every one can imagine the splash of water, caused by a log of wood falling into it. I think this comparison also far-fetched: such a splash cannot be compared with an object.

Our figure is taken from Mr. LEE’S often quoted work. It is the middle third of the one which illustrated the text in the Graphic, but as it is drawn on the same scale, I saw no reason to give my readers the whole illustration of the Graphic.