Part 94

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The =tenth= explanation.--In FRORIEP’S Notizen, Vol. 40, (1834), n^o. 879, p. 328, we read that, in a note to Mr. BAKEWELL’S latest (1834?) edition of his Introduction to Geology, above mentioned, Prof. BENJAMIN SILLIMAN adds:

“Mr. Bakewell’s very sensible conjecture that the sea-serpent may be a Saurian, agrees still more with the supposition, that it is a =Plesiosaurus=, than an Ichthyosaurus, as the short neck of the latter does not agree with the common appearance of the sea-serpent.”

Plesiosaurians, as well as the Ichthyosaurians, are reptiles only known in a fossil state. Only the bones of the skeleton of these animals are found in Europe as well as in America and in Australia in liassic and oolitic formations. Of these remains geologists are able to build up or to “restore” the whole skeleton, of which I show my readers a sketch in fig. 60.--If this is done, it will not be difficult to imagine how the animal must have looked, the more so as it is a well-known fact that these animals must have been destitute or nearly destitute of scales. The figures drawn by GOSSE, FIGUIER and ANDREW WILSON, don’t please me, as the necks are delineated too slender, and the head of the animal in Mr. GOSSE’S drawing, in my opinion, is wrongly represented. So I venture to present to my readers my fig. 61, showing how I think that the animal must have looked.

Mr. RATHKE, in the Archiv für Naturgeschichte, of 1841, after publishing some accounts of the sea-serpent, collected by himself during a journey in Norway, and after declaring that he himself is a firm believer in it, goes on:

“To which group of known animals, however, this being belongs, cannot of course be asserted with any certainty. The supposition, however, is very near, that it is closely related to that animal which in 1816” (read 1808) “stranded in Stronsa, one of the Orkney’s,” &c.

After a short description of this animal with which the reader will remember to have been made acquainted in the Chapter on Would-be Sea-Serpents, Mr. RATHKE concludes:

“that this animal resembled a Plesiosaurus, and that it thus belonged to the Amphibia, viz. to the Saurians. Now if such were the case, and if the creature found in Stronsa were closely related to the sea-serpent of the Norwegians, and we have every reason to believe this, it is astonishing that the latter has not been more observed, than has been the case. For being an Amphibium, which, according to its organization, can only breathe by lungs, the sea-serpent necessarily must have come very often to the surface of the water, to renew the inhaled air. It is, however, conceivable and probable that stretching out its long neck, it generally comes only with the nose tip and only for a very short time on the surface of the water, remaining under it with the rest of the body, in which circumstances it will not be easy to observe it amongst the beating of the waves.”

We observe that Mr. RATHKE, like Prof. SILLIMAN, inclines to believe that the sea-serpent is, or is allied to the Plesiosaurus.

Mr. EDWARD NEWMAN, the Editor of the Zoologist, in 1847, on the wrapper of the 54th. number of this Journal made the suggestion that sea-serpents may belong to one of the Enaliosaurians.

I have not seen this wrapper so that I am unable to give the words in which this supposition was written.

Most probably Mr. NEWMAN took this suggestion from Mr. RATHKE’S above mentioned dissertation, all the accounts of which he inserted (N. B.!) in the same number of the Zoologist; but it is, of course, possible that this supposition really was the product of his own brain. We hope that the latter was the case; but I only ask: why did he insert the accounts of Mr. RATHKE in the columns of the issue, and why not the above-mentioned suggestion; what was the reason to communicate it on the wrapper? It makes on me the impression as if Mr. NEWMAN waited to see if some one or other would perhaps find out that both accounts and supposition were already six years old! But, of course, I may be mistaken!

Immediately after reading this suggestion on the above mentioned wrapper, Mr. CHARLES COGSWELL wrote for the same Journal his Plea for the Sea-Serpent. For history’s sake I repeat here his whole paper. It runs as follows:

“A Plea for the North-Atlantic Sea-Serpent. By CHARLES COGSWELL, M. D.”

“Every generation of man is born to stare at something, which so long as it eludes their understanding, is a very African fetish to the many, and a Gordian knot to the few.”

HAWKIN’S Memoirs of Ichthyosauri and Plesiosauri.

“Of the numerous contributions supplied through the press to support the cause of the subject of this article, one of the most recent has arrested my attention, because of the particulars having been long since familiar to me by oral communication from the writer in person. I allude to the interesting narrative contained in the “Zoologist” for May last, describing a meeting with such an animal off the coast of one of the British provinces, stretching out into the Atlantic to the north-east of New England. It is worthy of notice that several animals of the Cetaceous kind (sometimes conjectured to have been a source of deception) were seen and scanned in limine, and an opportunity was thus afforded for immediate descrimination. Immediately subjoined is another statement, copied from a foreign newspaper, being the tribute of a French sea-captain to the same object, but qualified with so much of the characteristic national precision in the detail of certain forms and measurements, as rather to display an elaborate view of disjoined parts, than represent them all in harmony together as belonging to one individual. It betrays the caution of a witness, who would fain keep an opening in reserve for escape from a precarious position. The former adventure took place in 1833, the latter in 1840, and now they are related almost simultaneously within the last few months.”

“Nor is this delay to be wondered at, when we consider how much the reserve of unbiassed is the tribunal of public opinion, before which they appear. It will hardly be denied that there is no debateable point in the modern records of observation more complacently devoted to ridicule by all but universal consent, than that of the existence of huge serpent-like animals in the North Atlantic Ocean. The very mention of the name of sea-serpent in the singular number with the definite article prefixed, suggests to most minds an idea of some anomalous monster, without parentage or congeners, feigned to haunt the recesses of the deep, and, like the ghost of vulgar superstition, manifesting itself now and again for the sole conceivable end of adorning some wonderful legend. This impression, favoured by the circumstance of no actual specimen having ever occurred to the observation of a naturalist, much less been obtained for deliberate examination, has caused the subject of our notice to rank with the mermaid, the unicorn, the griffin, and other prodigies of the olden faith. It does not fail to be objected that Norway, a locality most fruitful in accounts of the appearance in question, has been immemorially distinguished for a vivid perception of the marvellous. Nor, after hearing the other side of the Atlantic, are we much better able to divest our minds of suspicion with regard to the trustworthy character of the witnesses; our relative in the West having acquired nearly as much celebrity for the endowment of a grand inventive genius as his Scandinavian ally in the cause of sea-serpents. They defer indeed, in so far as the latter believes and venerates his own creations, while the American indulges his fancy for the purely benevolent purpose of what is called “hoaxing” the unwary public. Not many years since, it may be recollected, one of these pleasant philosophers enlightened his fellow-mortals with a “true and peculiar” description of certain winged inhabitants assumed to have been discovered in the moon by an eminent living astronomer, giving the details with so much simplicity and effected candour with regard to some particulars, in the manner of “Gulliver’s Travels”, that many readers were not aware of its being a fabrication. Such proof of a disposition to practise on the public credulity, too often repeated, necessarily communicate a colouring of insincerity to all other reports of strange events emanating from the same source, and certainly demand the exercise of an unusual amount of circumspection, though they do not justify scepticism, in the case now before us.”

“Making due allowance for these peculiarities in the testimony, we may, nevertheless, proceed in a spirit of induction to examine into the tendency of the collateral evidence. The question after all, when reduced to its simplest form comes to be little more than one of geographical distribution. That is to say, that even if we chose to confine the animal to the true serpents, which has been the ordinary conception heretofore, there is no obvious impediment to oppose it, either on the score of want of analogy, or of structural incapacity. Amphibiousness, to commence with, in its popular acceptation, or the capability of spending a considerable time in the water, is one of the most familiar properties of serpents, as illustrated in the common snake (Coluber natrix) and the viper, the only two species, if we except the blindworm, ascertained to be indigenous to these islands. “Snakes”, observes Professor Bell (“History of British Reptiles”) “are extremely fond of the water, taking to it readily, and swimming with great elegance and ease, holding the head and neck above the surface. It is extremely probable that they resort to the water in search of frogs.” In the learned System of Schlegel, translated by Prof. Traill--“Physiognomy of Serpents”--members of various ophidian-groups are characterised as living near and inhabiting lakes and rivers. Some belong to the genera Tropidonotus (which here includes the first named British species), and Homalopsis, comprised under the head of Fresh Water-Serpents. Of the Boas, this author says: “several species frequent fresh water, and there are some of them essentially aquatic,” among them the Boa murina, the largest of known serpents, and his two species of Acrochordus.”

“Further, and what completely sets at rest the part of the case we are now considering, there are swarms of marine ophidians inhabiting the warm latitudes of the pacific. These appear to have been partly known to the ancients. Aelian informs us that Hydrae with flat tails were found in the Indian Seas, and that they also existed in the marshes. He also tells us that these reptiles had very sharp teeth, and appeared to be venomous. According to Ctesias, the serpents of the river Argada in the province of Sittacene, remain concealed at the bottom of the water during the day, and by night they attack persons who go to bath or wash linnen” (Griffith in Cuvier). Schlegel has no less than seven species collected under the generic name of Hydrophis, constituting his family of Sea-Snake--; they are especially fitted for aquatic life, having the nostrils directed vertically and furnished with valves, and the tail flattened like an oar; they reside in the sea exclusively, never going on land, and are supposed to prey on fishes. Their limits belong to the intertropical regions of the Indian Seas, or of the Great Pacific Ocean.”

“The existence of bona fide sea-serpents being therefore a matter of notoriety, (and preserved specimens are to be seen at any time on the shelves of the British Museum), we have but to address ourselves to the subordinate inquiry, whether there be sufficient reason for assigning to any of the family a habitat in the North Atlantic Ocean. And here it is necessary to put away all that idea of deviation from the common order of Nature, which could connect the evidence heretofore given with some isolated excressence so to speak, of the animal kingdom. The great size attributed to them has doubtless, served very materially to produce an infavourable impression. Schlegel limits the extreme length of the greatest known serpent to twenty-five feet, although such naturalists as Cuvier and Milne-Edwards allow an extension of thirty or forty feet to some of the Boas. These estimates do not fall so far short of those contended for in the present instance as to form an insuperable ground of objection. Many witnesses whose character and station in life command respect, whatever judgment may be formed of their powers of correct observation, profess to be fully persuaded that they have seen immense creatures, resembling serpents, in the vicinity of the European or the American shores. The several depositions from Norway that appeared in the “Zoologist” of February last, comprised the testimony not only of fishermen, drawing their subsistence from the sea, and familiar with the more prevalent forms of the inhabitants, but of a class commonly presumed to be well educated, as merchants, clergymen, and a surgeon. Their observations indeed vary on the subject of length (varying between forty and one hundred feet), and likewise on some of the details of outline, so that they may either relate to different specimens, or to deceptive phenomena producing dissimilar impressions, whichever alternative decretic may be inclined to profer. The first notice transmitted by an English gentleman, holding a responsible appointment under the crown in one of our transatlantic dependencies, is calculated to supply any deficiency on the part of the new hemisphere, so far as a faithful representation of what was submitted to the eye alone may remain a desideration. But for the resolution manifested in this periodical to allow the question a fair hearing on its sterling merits, there can be little doubt that this testimony, would not have been forthcoming; like in all probability, more of the same ingenious stamp, which the unwillingness of the principals to oppose the current of public opinion, directly proportioned to the value of the character they run the risk of compromizing for no obvious use, induces them to withhold.”

“But it may be asked, how it is possible to explain the circumstance of these monstra natantia being encountered no farther South than about the sixtieth or fifty-fifth parallel on the European boundary, while in the American water their domain approaches so much nearer the Equator, as Nova Scotia (or New Scotland) and New England? By a curious and happy coincidence, of like significance to many that are constantly springing up to confirm the results of independent research, such for instance as the print of the piscivorous gavials in a prior leaf of the “Stonebook” to the mammalivorous crocodiles; it happens that precisely a line swerving from Norway in a southerly direction to Massachusetts is the boundary likewise of other marine animals of corresponding types. Among the divisions of the North Atlantic, recently marked out by Professor Edward Forbes as determined by the presence of similar forms of animal life, occurs what is called the “arctic and boreal” province, which “sweeps across the northernmost part of the North Atlantic from Europe, extending down the coast of North America as far as Massachusetts, but nothing like so far on the European side as the American.” (Lecture at the Royal Institution, May 14, 1847).”

“Thus copiously backed by the most affirmative evidence, both positive and circumstantial, all contributing to establish the lawful claim to entity, the “great unknown” of the North Atlantic has still to overcome the strong feeling of discredit so widely associated with his past history, before he can hope to be understood as seriously claiming to be a subject of the animal kingdom. If men of the highest name in science condescend to notice him at all, it is most probably with a smile at the expense of what they consider a crude invention, to which no importance should be attached. But authority, however exalted, has no patent of final adjudication in cases where its means of information are confessedly imperfect, as compared with those enjoyed by the supporters of a disputed position. The learned world was centuries in believing the story of Herodotus about little birds resorting to feed on insects within the “stretched jaws” of the crocodile. Bruce all but ruined his credit for a time by relating that he had seen the Abyssinians eat the raw flesh cut from one of the haunches of a living cow; and there are some who, with no more reason, pretend to doubt the good faith of a contemporary traveller, who declares that he once made a brief excursion on the back of an alligator. The conflicts of discovery and opinion engross indeed no small share of the history of human knowledge. There are cases, no doubt, in which the senses and the judgment of incompetent persons are liable to be imposed upon by irrelevant facts created or qualified for the occasion. But here there is no hypothesis concerned requiring nature to be tortured into its service; physiology can have no latent objections, ready to start up unawares and make a mockery of belief, because some of the serpent kind are indubitably organized for an aquatic medium; the laws of geographical distribution deduced irrespectively, yield their consent, and the integrity of not a few of the narrator is unimpeachable. Are we justified in rejecting the text, because the interpretation may not harmonize with our views; in imputing willful dishonesty to those who merely describe to the best of their hability what their eyes have disclosed to them? We do not despice the mermaid, the triton and siren, as altogether imaginary but endeavour to reconcile at least their physical attributes with those of the seal or oriental dugong. The unicorn is supposed to have original in the narwhal; and the griffin is recognized as a well-known friend in an antiquated garb, being no other than the tapir, somewhat disfigured by travellers, and further indebted to the artist for a pair of wings and an architectural style of tail. Even the ghost-seer is seldom suspected of intentional fraud, however justly we may believe to be the dupe of an imagination acted on by some positive phenomenon. The collateral truths which testify on the affirmative side have been dwelt upon to some extent, and shall again be adverted to presently. On the other hand, surely there must be something peculiar in the economy of a vast air-breathing race, frequenting well-known tracts and yet never visible but by the merest accident; nor is it any sufficient answer to refer to the construction of the breathing apparatus, distinctive of the marine ophidians, enabling them to live long under water, and respire air with an almost imperceptible exposure above the surface, because the like provision does not prevent the Pacific denizens from being abundantly subject to observation. The want of conformity in some of the reported particulars of form and dimensions is of insignificant moment, and may easily be converted into a proof of innocence of design. Above all, the objections, be it understood, are not of the kind which the public at large appear to imagine them. There is nothing ridiculous or abnormal in the idea of a sea-serpent. So far from this the philosopher should rather be required to give a reason why at least the warmer situations of the Atlantic are unprovided with occupants corresponding to those which dwell in the opposite region of the globe.”

“If the diversity of detail be accounted too serious an objection to be so lightly dismissed, is there no other organization within our cognizance which more satisfactorily embodies the several conditions rather loosely intimated than prescribed throughout the problem? The portraits given in authors of the restored Plesiosaurus, albeit conceived to represent beings that “filled up the measure of their years long before Eden was planted, and the dominions of man made of the red earth, acknowledged” (Hawkins), offer several particulars answering to those ascribed in most of the notices on record to the so-named sea-serpent,--the long, over-arched neck, the huge trunk, the protracted tail, and sometimes (see the deposition of Archdeacon Deinbolt, “Zoologist” 1606) an appearance of fins or paddles. This coincidence is the more remarkable, because no one can suppose it to have been preconcerted. Hence the ingenious suggestion of the Editor of the “Zoologist”, that the animals may belong to one of the Enaliosaurian types, seems to supply the only deficient link in the chain of demonstration, before we arrive at the final proof, a spectacle open to all observers. The neck of the Plesiosaurus (presuming this to be the genus indicated) “is composed of upwards of thirty bones, a number far exceeding that of the cervical vertebrae in any other known animal. This reptile combines in its structure the head of a lizard with teeth like those of a crocodile, a neck resembling the body of a serpent, a trunk and tail of the proportions of those of a quadruped, with paddles like those of turtles” (Mantell’s Wonders of Geology). If this seemingly whimsical coaptation of incongruous members, which the dictum of science has consigned to the doom of pre-Adamic extinction, can be suspected without unpardonable heresy to be yet among the living, what is more allowable than to surmise that persons even of cultivated intellect, but quite inconscious that such things had ever existed, may have all honestly striven, more or less, to mould their visual perception into accordance with the familiar notion suggested by its general outline; and thus have given rise to the confusion objected to in their reports. Be this as it may, the discovery of Mr. Darwin of marine saurians, though but three or four feet long, about some of the south sea islands, contradicts any assumption that animals approaching to it in character are no longer extant. To account upon this supposition likewise for the hide-and-seek sort of life which those in question seem to lead, it may be observed that “the breathing holes of the Plesiosaurus differ from those of all other existing reptiles, and resemble those of whales”. They are placed “near the highest part of the head, where they would enable the animal most readily to breathe without exposing anything more than the apertures themselves above the water, corresponding admirably with the marine habits of the animal as indicated by the structure of its extremities.” (Ansted’s Ancient World, 1847).

“Without committing myself to anything more than a belief that the subject is one fairly entitled to be considered an open question--open to the unrestrained testimony of future casual observers, equally with the criticism of the scientific--I feel assured that I cannot better express the opinion which every candid peruser of what has been stated must be prepared to arrive at, than by using the words of a naturalist who has given his attention to these remarks: “The argument appears to me perfectly satisfactory in favour of at least a suspension of judgment on the subject. The question is whether the evidence is such as would induce any man to believe, whose mind was prepossessed with no notions at all respecting it. Should we credit the testimony, if the animal to which it relates were claimed to be a mere variety? I think we should.”--

I am obliged to make a few notes or observations on this paper. The account, namely, of which Mr. COGSWELL speaks in the beginning of his “Plea”, which arrested his attention, because of the particulars having been long since familiar to him by oral communication, is that of the party of British officers (n^o. 97).--That “other statement” is that made by Capt. D’ABNOUR (n^o. 106a).--I beg the reader to look over the above-mentioned passages.--Mr. COGSWELL had better done to omit his observation, that the account of the French sea-captain “was qualified with so much of the characteristic national precision in the detail of certain forms and measurements”. The reader himself will in most of the accounts of the sea-serpent, which fill this volume, have observed the same “precision in details” indifferently whether the account was recorded by a Norwegian, a German, an English, a French or an American witness.--His observation that the sea-serpent only occurs “in the North Atlantic no farther south than a line swerving from Norway in a southerly direction to Massachusetts” is incorrect, as the reader may already have observed himself. If he had read all the accounts of the sea-serpent up to his days, he would, of course, not have written this. The “deposition of Archdeacon DEINBOLT, zool. 1606” is of the 28th. of July, 1845 (n^o. 115). Mr. COGSWELL cites here the passage in which he will find “an appearance of paddles”. The reader will probably remember that there was no question of paddles, but of a boiling of the water, which the witnesses thought to have been caused by a pair of fins nearest the head, and which I have explained in another way.--Mr. COGSWELL calls Mr. NEWMAN’S suggestion, that the sea-serpents may belong to the Enaliosaurian type, “ingenious”. I think that the reader, after having read only the accounts of the sea-serpent up to the days of Mr. NEWMAN’S suggestion, i. e. up to 1847, will not be inclined to call this suggestion “ingenious”, with regard to the sea-serpent being so often reported as having a mane and whiskers, and swimming with vertical undulations. Moreover it is the question whether this suggestion was Mr. NEWMAN’S or Mr. RATHKE’S.

Mr. J. D. MORRIES STIRLING too, seemed to believe that the sea-serpents are allied to the extinct Plesiosauri, for he writes in a letter to Captain HAMILTON, R. N., Secretary to the Admiralty (See Illustrated London News of 28th. October, 1848):

“There are I believe, several varieties of the reptile known as the sea-serpent but almost all the accounts agree as to the existence of a mane, and as to the great size of the eye. In several of the fossil reptiles somewhat approaching the sea-serpent in size and other characteristics, the orbit is very large; and in this respect, as well as having short paws or flappers, the description of the Northern sea-serpents agree with the supposed appearance of some of the antediluvian species. A great part of the disbelief in the existence of the sea-serpent has arisen from its being supposed to be the same animal as the kraken, or rather from the names having been used indiscriminately.”