Part 93

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The =seventh= explanation, viz. that the “slow motions of =basking sharks=” evidently caused a deceitful appearance, will be found at the end of Mr. MITCHILL’S dissertation, printed in 1828, with which the reader will remember to have been made acquainted in our Chapter on Hoaxes. A basking shark is delineated in our fig. 8, in the Chapter on Would-be Sea-Serpents.

Again this suggestion is made by the well-known palaeontologist MANTELL in a P. S. to a letter addressed by him to the Editor of the Illustrated London News, and published there in the number of November 4, 1848:

“P. S. With regard to the existence of the so-called sea-serpent, I would beg to remark, that, although it is highly improbable that an ophidian, or true snake, of the dimensions and marine habits described by our voyagers now exists, yet there is nothing to forbid the supposition that there are unknown living forms of cartilaginous fishes presenting the general configuration and proportions of the animals figured in the last Number of the Illustrated London News.”

Evidently he meant a shark, of which individuals of more than thirty feet are no rarity in the species called basking shark (Squalus maximus of LINNÉ). The figures referred to are those of the sea-serpent seen by Captain M’QUHAE, (fig. 28, 29, 30).

In the fifth explanation we have learned that Mr. A. G. MELVILLE was of opinion that there does not exist a sea-serpent in reality, but only in fables, and that these fables originated in the Northern mythology. Now, he seems to have changed his opinion in a fortnight, for in a letter to Dr. COGSWELL, part of which is published “with permission of both gentlemen” in the Zoologist, number of November 27th., 1848, he says:

“I have never entertained a doubt regarding the existence of some unknown animal of vast dimensions, whose angel visits have astonished the fortunate observers or excited the incredulous smile of the authorities of science.”

“No one inclined, I believe, to give due importance to the known facts of geology, can entertain the probability of any relationship between “the great sea-serpent” and the extinct Plesiosauri; nor do the recorded phenomena require such a hypothesis.”

“Reasoning from the known occurrence of a huge cartilaginous fish (Squalus) on our Orcadian shores, I am of opinion that when caught the sea-serpent will turn out to be a shark, and I conceive it is just as probable that a shark may carry the head for short periods out of the water, as that the flying fishes should occasionally step aboard to look at us land monsters.”

“It is always unsafe to deny positively any phenomena that may be wholly or in part inexplicable; and hence I am content to believe that one day the question will be satisfactorily solved. Might we not obtain some information from the accurate Sars regarding the Norwegian tradition? Could not the surgeon of the Daedalus throw some light on the subject?”

Mr. GOSSE, in his Romance of Natural History, after having treated of the probability of the sea-serpent being an optical illusion caused by huge stems of sea-weed, or being a large seal, or some cetacean, expresses his opinion about the basking-shark theory in the following terms:

“As to its place among fishes, Dr. Mantell and Mr. Melville consider that the Daedalus animal may have been one of the sharks; and there is no doubt that the celebrated Stronsa animal, which was considered by Dr. Barclay as the Norwegian sea-serpent, was really the Selache maxima or basking-shark. But the identification of Captain M’Quhae’s figure and description with a shark is preposterous.”

Mr. ANDREW WILSON, however, in Nature (1878, Sept. 12, Vol. XVIII) is of the opinion that:

“A long tape fish, or even a basking shark of huge dimensions, might do duty in the eyes of non zoological observers for a “sea-serpent”.”

Mr. LEE, in his Sea Monsters Unmasked, 1883, also believes that “the dorsal fins of basking sharks, as figured by Mr. Buckland, may have furnished the “ridge of fins”. Here he evidently means the ridge of fins as seen in fig. 44.

None of the observers of the sea-serpent mention fins on its back, so that this explanation is not untenable either.

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The =eighth= explanation is given by Mr. MITCHILL in his paper “On Sea-Serpentism”, printed in 1828; (See our Chapter on Hoaxes), at the end of which he supposed that also the appearances of =balaenopterous whales= may have given rise to reports of the sea-serpent. He says: “which have fins on their back”, and yet he cannot show me one single account of the sea-serpent, in which there is question of backfins. Moreover, who has ever heard of fin-fishes which bend their body in such a manner as to show bunches on their backs, or coils like a string of buoys? Fig. 57 shows the readers a fin-fish (Balaenoptera physalus (LINNÉ)). It is the largest kind of whales, it may obtain a length of 106 feet. An outline of the tail, seen from above, is added above the hindmost part of the main-figure.

Mr. GOSSE in his Romance of Natural History, after having considered and upset the sea-weed hypothesis and the seal-theory says:

“It is by no means impossible that the creature may prove to belong to the Cetacea or whale tribe. I know of no reason why a slender and lengthened form should not exist in this order. The testimony of Colonel Steele, who represents his animal as spouting, points in this direction.”

The sea-serpent seen by Colonel STEELE, however was not a cetacean, although it was observed spouting, for it had a red back-fin like a saw (see our Chapter on Would-be Sea-Serpents, 1852, Aug. 28).--

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The =ninth= explanation is Mr. R. BAKEWELL’S. In FRORIEP’S Notizen, Vol. 40, n^o. 879, of June, 1834, we read:

“With regard to the often mentioned and much questioned great American Sea-Serpent Mr. R. Bakewell, in the latest edition of his Introduction to Geology, Chapt. 16, p. 312, has expressed the opinion that the great sea-serpent often seen on the coasts of the United States of America probably belonged to a genus of reptiles which may be analogous to the fossil =Ichthyosaurus=, and that the description, given of the sea-serpent, as having flappers like sea-turtles, and formidable mandibles like a crocodile, was agreeing more with that of a saurian than with that of a snake. Some of the people who saw the sea-serpent state that the body was very long and as thick as a water-cask.”

Though in 1872 the majority apparently believed the sea-serpent to be a living Plesiosaurus, yet we meet with the following suggestion, in the September number of Nature of that same year.

“The following extract from an evening contemporary well illustrates the hazy ideas prevalent as to the extinct Saurian monsters of which the sea-serpent is supposed to be a descendant:--“If the sea-serpent continues in its present sociable state of mind, we may perhaps have an opportunity of deciding the vexed question regarding the formation of that portion of his figure which, according to English observers, he keeps concealed under the water. The legend of the Lambton Worm, a popular tale in the North of England, describes the worm as a serpent of enormous size, who used to coil himself round a hill overhanging the River Wear, just as thread is wound round a reel, but a very ancient stone effigy of the creature which lately existed at Lambton Castle, represents it with ears, legs and a pair of wings. If this effigy was made, as it probably was, from some recollection on recent tradition of the Lambton Worm, these adjuncts would indicate that the beast was one of the winged land monsters which existed at the same time as the Ichthyosaurus, but would naturally become an extinct species far sooner than the fish-lizard, which can conceal itself in the depth of the ocean from the curiosity and violence of man.”

The Ichthyosaurus must have been destitute of scales, or better the scales must have been of a microscopic minuteness, and so I have ventured to sketch my fig. 59, showing the Ichthyosaurus communis, as it most probably looked, and of which fig. 58 represents the skeleton.

Here we have an animal of really huge dimensions. Some may have had a length of from forty to fifty feet. Their skin was smooth, the tail was very long and four flappers resembling the foreflappers of whales, were the organs of locomotion. Most probably, however, the tail was provided with a vertical fin, as I have delineated. The neck was very short, as in whales. Now the sea-serpent has a pointed tail, and a very long neck. Especially this last character is enough to drop the supposition that the sea-serpents are still living Ichthyosauri. Moreover, the Ichthyosaurus was unable to move in vertical undulations.