Part 88

“After all I heard and saw at Bergen, I don’t doubt in the least that in the Atlantic and on the coasts of Norway really appear from time to time immensely large mammals of the seal-kind, known by the name of “great sea-serpent”, though I therefore don’t admit all fabulous tales about it.”

The words “mammals of the seal-kind” are explained by the following circumstance. In November, 1881, appeared from my pen, then a student’s pen, a little article on the sea-serpent, in which I tried to show that a sea-serpent is a yet undescribed long marine animal, closely allied to the pinnipeds, with a long neck and a long tail. Mr. HONIGH, in preparing his paper for the Gids requested me to let him have a copy of my article, which I sent him, and he evidently accepted my supposition.

In a letter Mr. HONIGH tells me:

“In the literature of the Norwegians the sea-serpent or soe-orm is repeatedly mentioned, and in such an indisputable manner, that in my opinion there is no doubt of its existence.”

“On my return I learned from a gentleman of Bergen, that some time ago there was a part of the skeleton of a sea-serpent in the Museum of Natural History of Bergen.”

Though I begged Mr. HONIGH, teacher at the National Agricultural School at Wageningen, to communicate to me further particulars about the sea-serpent and about its literature, learned by him on his travels through Norway, and repeated this my question in February 1889, I am still waiting for an answer.

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=157=.--1885, August 16.--(Nature of September 10, 1885).

“It was hardly to be expected that the season should pass without the appearance of the sea-serpent somewhere, and if we are to believe the information forwarded to us from a correspondent in Norway, it has just visited the coast of Nordland. Three sundays ago some lads were returning to the Island of Röd from the church at Melö, in the middle of the day, when they saw far out in the fjord a streak in the sea which they believed to be a flock of wild ducks swimming. On proceeding further, however, they heard a whizzing as of a rushing fountain and in a few moments perceived a great sea-monster with great velocity making straight for the boat. It appeared to be serpentine in shape, with a flat scaly head, and the lads counted seventeen coils on the surface of the water just as it passed the stern of the boat so closely that they could have thrown a boathook into it. By subsequent measurements on land the length of the animal was estimated at about 200 feet. It pursued its course on the surface of the sea until close behind the boat when it went down with a tremendous noise, but reappeared a little after, shaping its course for the Melö, where it disappeared from view. Naturally, the lads were greatly frightened. The weather at the time was hot, calm, and sunny. Our informer states that the lads are intelligent and truthful, and that there is no reason to discredit their unanimous statement, made, as it were, in a terribly frightened condition. It might be added that the waters in which the animal was seen are some of the deepest on the Norwegian coast, and that it is not the first time fishermen have averred having seen the sea-serpent here. The existence of the sea-serpent is fully believed in along the coast of Norway.”

The sea-serpent in its rapid motion made, as is often stated, the water curl before its throat, which rushing sound was distinctly heard by the lads. Notwithstanding their great fright they yet saw the head was flat, but they were mistaken as to its being scaly. Moreover the account is unvarnished and the description of the animal’s motions is correct.

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Mr. W. E. HOYLE, busy on the article “Sea-Serpent” for the 9th. Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, published in 1886 (June?) a number of titles of books and journals, which came in his way while studying the subject. This bibliography contains 89 numbers. They were printed, as the author says: “in the hope that they might be the means of saving time and labor on the part of others”. Alas, his hope has not been realized on my part, for I had nearly finished my work when I happened to find Mr. HOYLE’s paper quoted in the decennial Register of the Zoologischer Anzeiger. Only 25 of the numbers published by Mr. HOYLE were new additions to my “Literature on the subject”, and I could consult only three of them, amongst which Mr. HOYLE’s article “Sea-Serpent” in the Encyclopedia Britannica quoted above.

Though Mr. HOYLE states: “no satisfactory explanation has yet been given of certain descriptions of the sea-serpent”, among others of “the huge snake seen by certain of the crew of the Pauline” (n^o. 144, 145) and of “Lieutenant Hayne’s account” (n^o. 148), and though he ends his article with the words: “It would thus appear that, while, with very few exceptions, all the so-called sea-serpents can be explained by reference to some well-known animal or other natural object, there is still a residuum sufficient to prevent modern zoologists from denying the possibility that some such creature may after all exist”, he himself was evidently taken in by the different persons who explained the sea-serpent by reference to the most impossible suppositions! He enumerates eight different explanations and seems fully to agree with them. It is evident that his only purpose was to satisfy the request of writing an article on the Sea-Serpent for an Encyclopedia.

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=158=.--1886, August.--In the Graphic of September, 25, we read:

“The sea-serpent has now crossed the Atlantic, and has suddenly appeared near Kingston Point, on the Hudson. It was seen by two young men, who were rowing in a boat, and who, it seems, the monster fruitlessly chased. They describe the animal as growing furious, when it found them escaping. “It lashed the water with its tail, which seemed to be about seventy-five feet distance from its head. The head was as large and round as a flour-barrel; and its eyes of a greenish hue, looked “devilish”. Before resuming its journey up the Hudson, it squirted from its mouth a stream of foamy stuff resembling long shavings from a pine plank.”

I have no reason to consider this account as a hoax, though it almost reads like one. In the Norwegian accounts it is said that the sea-serpent very often follows boats. I have explained this by the animal’s curiosity, mixed with some fear. The young men may have observed the animal paddling with its hind flappers, a possible expression of some emotion, as I have also explained when speaking of the animal seen from the Kiushiu Maru (n^o. 151), and they may have ascribed the foam to the lashing of its tail; or it really lashed its tail, as I also supposed on that occasion (n^o. 151). The length between head and tail estimated at seventy-five feet, is certainly not exaggerated. As the head is described round as a flour-barrel, it was evidently seen in its face. I refer to the animal of the Osborne (n^o. 148) where the head seen from behind is also described and figured round as a bullet. Of the young men’s description that the eyes “looked devilish”, and also that of their colour being “of a greenish hue” I will only say that it is unique. The “stream of foamy stuff resembling long shavings from a pine plank” was of course nothing but a sudden exhalation, probably held for some time from curiosity and fear, and then suddenly sent forth. The locality where the sea-serpent appeared, may be apparently strange, it is, however, very well explicable, owing to the animal’s habit of frequenting shores, and to the habit of other pinnipeds of frequenting brackish water and even mouths of large rivers.--

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=159=.--1886, August?--In the same number of the Graphic it says:

“The serpent was also seen by the captain of a steamer, who “gave it the right of way”.”

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=160=.--1886, August?--(On the same page):

“And yet another man (appropriately) named Jonah, who at first took the monster to be an immense tree floating with the tide--a notion which was quickly dispelled by the supposed tree throwing twenty feet of its length out of water.”

As the reader will remember, the comparison of the sea-serpent, swimming or lying on the surface, with a floating tree or log of wood, has been made more than once; evidently the animal raised its enormous neck for a moment out of water, to take a look-out.

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=161=.--1889, May.--In the Haagsche Courant of June 6, of this year, I read:

“The sea-serpent has again appeared, and been seen by a captain sailing from Liverpool to Philadelphia, who hitherto obstinately refused to believe in its existence.”

Of course I immediately wrote to the Editor, begging him for the name of the journal, from which this statement had been taken. The Editor courteously answered that one of his correspondents had forwarded him a written copy of the account taken from the 38th. number of the Grondwet of May 21st., of this year, published in Holland, Michigan, but the written copy had already disappeared in the paper-basket, and the correspondent requested to send the original, answered that he was unable to do so for the same reason.