this occasion they were not called into requisition; my purpose and
desire throughout being to furnish eminent naturalists, such as the
learned Professor, with accurate facts, and not with exaggerated
representations, nor with what could by any possibility proceed
from optical illusion; and I beg to assure him that old Pontoppidan
having clothed his sea-serpent with a mane could not have suggested
the idea of ornamenting the creature seen from the 'Daedalus' with a
similar appendage, for the simple reason that I had never seen his
account, or even heard of his sea-serpent, until my arrival in
London. Some other solution must therefore be found for the very
remarkable coincidence between us in that particular, in order to
unravel the mystery.
"Finally, I deny the existence of excitement or the possibility of
optical illusion. I adhere to the statements, as to form, colour,
and dimensions, contained in my official report to the Admiralty,
and I leave them as data whereupon the learned and scientific may
exercise the 'pleasures of imagination' until some more fortunate
opportunity shall occur of making a closer acquaintance with the
'great unknown'--in the present instance most assuredly no ghost.
"P. M'QUHAE, late Captain of H.M.S. 'Daedalus.'"
Of course neither Professor Owen, nor any one else, doubted the
veracity or _bona fides_ of the captain and officers of one of Her
Majesty's ships; and their testimony was the more important because it
was that of men accustomed to the sights of the sea. Their practised
eyes would, probably, be able to detect the true character of anything
met with afloat, even if only partially seen, as intuitively as the Red
Indian reads the signs of the forest or the trail; and therefore they
were not likely to be deceived by any of the objects with which sailors
are familiar. They would not be deluded by seals, porpoises, trunks of
trees, or Brobdingnagian stems of algae; but there was one animal with
which they were not familiar, of the existence of which they were
unaware, and which, as I have said, at that date was generally believed
to be as unreal as the sea-serpent itself--namely, the great calamary,
the elongated form of which has certainly in some other instances been
mistaken for that of a sea-snake. One of these seen swimming in the
manner I have described, and endeavoured to portray (p. 77), would
fulfil the description given by Lieutenant Drummond, and would in a
great measure account for the appearances reported by Captain M'Quhae.
"_The head long, pointed and flat on the top_," accords with the pointed
extremity and caudal fin of the squid. "_Head kept horizontal with the
surface of the water, and in rather a raised position, disappearing
occasionally beneath a wave for a very brief interval, and not
apparently for purposes of respiration._" A perfect description of the
position and action of a squid swimming. "_No portion of it perceptibly
used in propelling it through the water, either by vertical or
horizontal undulations._" The mode of propulsion of a squid--the
outpouring stream of water from its locomotor tube--would be unseen and
unsuspected, because submerged. Its effect, the swirl in its wake, would
suggest a prolongation of the creature's body. The numerous arms
trailing astern at the surface of the water would give the appearance of
a mane. I think it not impossible that if the officers of the _Daedalus_
had been acquainted with this great sea creature the impression on their
mind's eye would not have taken the form of a serpent. I offer this,
with much diffidence, as a suggestion arising from recent discoveries;
and by no means insist on its acceptance; for Captain M'Quhae, who had a
very close view of the animal, distinctly says that "the head was,
without any doubt, that of a serpent," and one of his officers
subsequently declared that the eye, the mouth, the nostril, the colour,
and the form were all most distinctly visible.
In a letter addressed to the Editor of the _Bombay Times_, and dated
"Kamptee, January 3rd, 1849," Mr. R. Davidson, Superintending Surgeon,
Nagpore Subsidiary Force, describes a great sea animal seen by him
whilst on board the ship _Royal Saxon_, on a voyage to India, in 1829.
The features of this incident are consistent with his having seen one of
the, then unknown, great calamaries.
Dr. Scott, of Exeter, sent to the Editor of the _Zoologist_ (p. 2459),
an extract from the memorandum-book of Lieutenant Sandford, R.N.,
written about the year 1820, when he was in command of the merchant ship
_Lady Combermere_. In it he mentions his having met with, in lat. 46,
long. 3 (Bay of Biscay), an animal unknown to him, an immense body on
the surface of the water, spouting, not unlike the blowing of a whale,
and the raising up of a triangular extremity, and subsequently of a head
and neck erected six feet above the surface of the water. This was
evidently a great squid seen under circumstances similar to those
described by Hans Egede (p. 67).
In the _Sun_ Newspaper of July 9th, 1849, was published the following
statement of Captain Herriman, of the ship _Brazilian_:
"On the morning of the 24th February, the ship being becalmed in
lat. 26 deg. S., long. 8 deg. E. (about forty miles from the place where
Captain M'Quhae is said to have seen the serpent), the captain
perceived something right astern, stretched along the water to a
length of twenty five or thirty feet, and perceptibly moving from
the ship, with a steady sinuous motion. The head, which seemed to
be lifted several feet above the water, had something resembling a
mane running down to the floating portion, and within about six
feet of the tail. Of course Captain Herriman, Mr. Long, his chief
officer, and the passengers who saw this came to the conclusion
that it must be the sea-serpent. As the 'Brazilian' was making no
headway, to bring all doubts to an issue, the captain had a boat
lowered, and himself standing in the bow, armed with a harpoon,
approached the monster. It was found to be an immense piece of
sea-weed, drifting with the current, which sets constantly to the
westward in this latitude, and which, with the swell left by the
subsidence of a previous gale, gave it the sinuous snake-like
motion."
Captain Harrington, of the ship _Castilian_, reported in the _Times_ of
February 5th, 1858, that:
"On the 12th of December, 1857, N.E. end of St. Helena distant ten
miles, he and his officers were startled by the sight of a huge
marine animal which reared its head out of the water within twenty
yards of the ship. The head was shaped like a long nun-buoy,[31]
and they supposed it to have been seven or eight feet in diameter
in the largest part, with a kind of scroll or tuft of loose skin,
encircling it about two feet from the top. The water was
discoloured for several hundred feet from its head, so much so that
on its first appearance my impression was that the ship was in
broken water."
[31] See illustration, p. 67.
Evidently, again, a large calamary raising its caudal extremity and fin
above the surface, and discolouring the water by discharging its ink.
This was immediately followed by a letter from Captain Frederick Smith,
of the ship _Pekin_, who stated that:
"On December 28th, 1848, being then in lat. 26 deg. S., long. 6 deg. E.
(about half-way between the Cape and St. Helena), he saw a very
extraordinary-looking thing in the water, of considerable length.
With the telescope, he could plainly discern a huge head and neck,
covered with a shaggy-looking kind of mane, which it kept lifting
at intervals out of water. This was seen by all hands, and was
declared to be the great sea-serpent. A boat was lowered; a line
was made fast to the 'snake,' and it was towed alongside and
hoisted on board. It was a piece of gigantic sea-weed, twenty feet
long, and completely covered with snaky-looking barnacles. So like
a huge living monster did this appear, that had circumstances
prevented my sending a boat to it, I should certainly have believed
I had seen the great sea-serpent."
In September, 1872, Mr. Frank Buckland published, in _Land and Water_,
an account by the late Duke of Marlborough, of a "sea-serpent" having
been seen several times within a few days, in Loch Hourn, Scotland. A
sketch of it was given which almost exactly accorded with that of
Pontoppidan's sea-serpent, namely, seven hunches or protuberances like
so many porpoises swimming in line, preceded by a head and neck raised
slightly out of water. Many other accounts have been published of the
appearance of serpent-like sea monsters, but I have only space for two
or three more of the most remarkable of them.
On the 10th of January, 1877, the following affidavit was made before
Mr. Raffles, magistrate, at Liverpool:
"We, the undersigned officers and crew of the barque 'Pauline' (of
London), of Liverpool, in the county of Lancaster, in the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, do solemnly and sincerely
declare that, on July 8, 1875, in lat. 5 deg. 13' S., long. 35 deg. W., we
observed three large sperm whales, and one of them was gripped
round the body with two turns of what appeared to be a huge
serpent. The head and tail appeared to have a length beyond the
coils of about thirty feet, and its girth eight feet or nine feet.
The serpent whirled its victim round and round for about fifteen
minutes, and then suddenly dragged the whale to the bottom, head
first.
"GEO. DREVAR, Master; HORATIO THOMPSON, JOHN HENDERSON
LANDELLS, OWEN BAKER, and WILLIAM LEWARN.
"Again, on July 13, a similar serpent was seen, about two hundred
yards off, shooting itself along the surface, head and neck being
out of the water several feet. This was seen only by the captain
and one ordinary seaman.
"GEORGE DREVAR, Master.
"A few moments after it was seen some 60 feet elevated
perpendicularly in the air by the chief officer and the following
seamen:--Horatio Thompson, Owen Baker, Wm. Lewarn. And we make this
solemn declaration, conscientiously believing the same to be true."
In the _Illustrated London News_, of November 20th, 1875, there had
previously appeared a letter from the Rev. E. L. Penny, Chaplain to
H.M.S. _London_, at Zanzibar, describing this occurrence and also the
representation of a sketch (which I am kindly permitted to reproduce
here), drawn by him from the descriptions given by the captain and crew
of the _Pauline_. "The whale," he said, "should have been placed deeper
in the water, but he would then have been unable to depict so clearly
the manner in which the animal was attacked." He adds that, "Captain
Drevar is a singularly able and observant man, and those of the crew and
officers with whom he conversed were singularly intelligent; nor did any
of their descriptions vary from one another in the least: there were no
discrepancies." The event took place whilst their vessel was on her way
from Shields to Zanzibar, with a cargo of coals, for the use of H.M.S.
_London_, then the guard ship on that station.
It is impossible to doubt for a moment the genuineness of the
statement made by Captain Drevar and his crew, or their honest desire to
describe faithfully that which they believed they had seen; but the
height to which the snake is said to have upreared itself is evidently
greatly exaggerated; for it is impossible that any serpent could
"elevate its body some sixty feet perpendicularly in the air"--nearly
one-third of the height of the Monument of the Great Fire of London. I
have no desire to force this narrative of the master and crew of the
_Pauline_ into conformity with any preconceived idea. They may have seen
a veritable sea-serpent; or they may have witnessed the amours of two
whales, and have seen the great creatures rolling over and over that
they might breathe alternately by the blow-hole of each coming to the
surface of the water; or the supposed coils of the snake may have been
the arms of a great calamary, cast over and around the huge cetacean.
The other two appearances--1st, the animal "seen shooting itself along
the surface with head and neck raised" (p. 77), and 2nd, the elevation
of the body to a considerable height, as in Egede's sea monster, (p.
67), would certainly accord with this last hypothesis; but, taking the
statement as it stands, it must be left for further elucidation.
[Illustration: FIG 20.--THE "SEA SERPENT" AND SPERM WHALE AS SEEN FROM
THE 'PAULINE.']
On the 28th of January, 1879, a "sea-serpent" was seen from the s.s.
_City of Baltimore_, in the Gulf of Aden, by Major H. W. J. Senior, of
the Bengal Staff Corps. The narrator "observed a long, black object
darting rapidly in and out of the water, and advancing nearer to the
vessel. The shape of the head was not unlike pictures of the dragon he
had often seen, with a bull-dog expression of the forehead and eyebrows.
When the monster had drawn its head sufficiently out of the water, it
let its body drop, as it were a log of wood, prior to darting forward
under the water. This motion caused a splash of about fifteen feet in
length on either side of the neck much in the 'shape of a pair of
wings.'" This last particular of its appearance, as well as its
movements, suggest a great calamary; but, as one with "a bull-dog
expression of eyebrow, visible at 500 yards distance," does not come
within my ken, I will not claim it as such.
[Illustration: FIG. 21.--THE "SEA SERPENT" AS SEEN FROM THE 'CITY OF
BALTIMORE.']
In June 1877 Commander Pearson reported to the Admiralty, that on the
2nd of that month, he and other officers of the Royal Yacht _Osborne_,
had seen, off Cape Vito, Sicily, a large marine animal, of which the
following account and sketches were furnished by Lieutenant Haynes, and
were confirmed by Commander Pearson, Mr. Douglas Haynes, Mr. Forsyth,
and Mr. Moore, engineer.
"Lieutenant Haynes writes, under date, 'Royal Yacht _Osborne_,
Gibraltar, June 6': On the evening of that day, the sea being
perfectly smooth, my attention was first called by seeing a ridge
of fins above the surface of the water, extending about thirty
feet, and varying from five to six feet in height. On inspecting it
by means of a telescope, at about one and a-half cables' distance,
I distinctly saw a head, two flappers, and about thirty feet of an
animal's shoulder. The head, as nearly as I could judge, was about
six feet thick, the neck narrower, about four to five feet, the
shoulder about fifteen feet across, and the flappers each about
fifteen feet in length. The movements of the flappers were those of
a turtle, and the animal resembled a huge seal, the resemblance
being strongest about the back of the head. 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. The tail end I did not see, being under water, unless the
ridge of fins to which my attention was first attracted, and which
had disappeared by the time I got a telescope, were really the
continuation of the shoulder to the end of the object's body. The
animal's head was not always above water, but was thrown upwards,
remaining above for a few seconds at a time, and then disappearing.
There was an entire absence of 'blowing,' or 'spouting.' I herewith
beg to enclose a rough sketch, showing the view of the 'ridge of
fins,' and also of the animal in the act of propelling itself by
its two fins."
[Illustration: FIG. 22.--THE "SEA SERPENT" AS SEEN FROM H.M. YACHT
'OSBORNE.'
PHASE I.]
[Illustration: FIG. 23.--THE "SEA SERPENT" AS SEEN FROM H.M. YACHT
'OSBORNE.'
PHASE 2.]
It seems to me that this description cannot be explained as applicable
to any one animal yet known. The ridge of dorsal fins might, possibly,
as was suggested by Mr. Frank Buckland, belong to four basking sharks,
swimming in line, in close order; but the combination of them with long
flippers, and the turtle-like mode of swimming, forms a zoological
enigma which I am unable to solve.
This brings us face to face with the question: "Is it then so
impossible that there may exist some great sea creature, or creatures,
with which zoologists are hitherto unacquainted, that it is necessary in
every case to regard the authors of such narratives as wilfully
untruthful, or mistaken in their observations, if their descriptions are
irreconcileable with something already known?" I, for one, am of the
opinion that there is no such impossibility. Calamaries or squids of the
ordinary size have, from time immemorial, been amongst the commonest and
best known of marine animals in many seas; but only a few years ago any
one who expressed his belief in one formidable enough to capsize a boat,
or pull a man out of one, was derided for his credulity, although
voyagers had constantly reported that in the Indian seas they were so
dreaded that the natives always carried hatchets with them in their
canoes, with which to cut off the arms or tentacles of these creatures,
if attacked by them. We now know that their existence is no fiction; for
individuals have been captured measuring more than fifty feet, and some
are reported to have measured eighty feet, in total length. As marine
snakes some feet in length, and having fin-like tails adapted for
swimming, abound over an extensive geographical range, and are
frequently met with far at sea, I cannot regard it as impossible that
some of these also may attain to an abnormal and colossal development.
Dr. Andrew Wilson, who has given much attention to this subject, is of
the opinion that "in this huge development of ordinary forms we discover
the true and natural law of the production of the giant serpent of the
sea." It goes far, at any rate, towards accounting for its supposed
appearance. I am convinced that, whilst naturalists have been searching
amongst the vertebrata for a solution of the problem, the great unknown,
and therefore unrecognized, calamaries by their elongated, cylindrical
bodies and peculiar mode of swimming, have played the part of the
sea-serpent in many a well-authenticated incident. In other cases, such
as some of those mentioned by Pontoppidan, the supposed "vertical
undulations" of the snake seen out of water have been the burly bodies
of so many porpoises swimming in line--the connecting undulations
beneath the surface have been supplied by the imagination. The dorsal
fins of basking sharks, as figured by Mr. Buckland, or of ribbon-fishes,
as suggested by Dr. Andrew Wilson, may have furnished the "ridge of
fins;" an enormous conger is not an impossibility; a giant turtle may
have done duty, with its propelling flippers and broad back; or a marine
snake of enormous size may, really, have been seen. But if we accept as
accurate the observations recorded (which I certainly do not in all
cases, for they are full of errors and mistakes), the difficulty is not
entirely met, even by this last admission, for the instances are very
few in which an ophidian proper--a true serpent--is indicated. There has
seemed to be wanting an animal having a long snake-like neck, a small
head and a slender body, and propelling itself by paddles.[32]
[32] It must be noted, however, that in almost every case, except
that of the _Osborne_, the paddles were _supposed_, not _seen_, and
were invented to account for an animal of great length progressing
at the surface of the water at the rate of twelve to fifteen miles
an hour without its being possible to perceive, upon the closest
and most attentive inspection, any undulatory movement to which its
rapid advance could be ascribed. As the great calamaries were
unknown, their mode of swift retrograde motion, by means of an
outflowing current of water, was of course unsuspected.
The similarity of such an animal to the _Plesiosaurus_ of old was
remarkable. That curious compound reptile, which has been compared with
"a snake threaded through the body of a turtle," is described by Dean
Buckland, in his _Bridgewater Treatise_, as having "the head of a
lizard, the teeth of a crocodile, a neck of enormous length resembling
the body of a serpent, the ribs of a chameleon, and the paddles of a
whale." In the number of its cervical vertebrae (about thirty-three) it
surpasses that of the longest-necked bird, the swan.
The form and probable movements of this ancient saurian agree so
markedly with some of the accounts given of the "great sea-serpent,"
that Mr. Edward Newman advanced the opinion that the closest affinities
of the latter would be found to be with the _Enaliosauria_, or marine
lizards, whose fossil remains are so abundant in the oolite and the
lias. This view has also been taken by other writers, and emphatically
by Mr. Gosse. Neither he nor Mr. Newman insist that the "great unknown"
must be the _Plesiosaurus_ itself. Mr. Gosse says, "I should not look
for any species, scarcely even any genus, to be perpetuated from the
oolitic period to the present. Admitting the actual continuation of the
order _Enaliosauria_, it would be, I think, quite in conformity with
general analogy to find some salient features of several extinct forms."
[Illustration: FIG 24.
_Plesiosaurus Dolichodeirus restored by The Rev. W. D. Canybeare._]
The form and habits of the recently-recognized gigantic cuttles account
for so many appearances which, without knowledge of them, were
inexplicable when Mr. Gosse and Mr. Newman wrote, that I think this
theory is not now forced upon us. Mr. Gosse well and clearly sums up the
evidence as follows: "Carefully comparing the independent narratives of
English witnesses of known character and position, most of them being
officers under the crown, we have a creature possessing the following
characteristics: 1st. The general form of a serpent. 2nd. Great length,
say above sixty feet. 3rd. Head considered to resemble that of a
serpent. 4th. Neck from twelve to sixteen inches in diameter. 5th.
Appendages on the head, neck, or back, resembling a crest or mane.
(Considerable discrepancy in details.) 6th. Colour dark brown, or green,
streaked or spotted with white. 7th. Swims at surface of the water with
a rapid or slow movement, the head and neck projected and elevated above
the surface. 8th. Progression, steady and uniform; the body straight,
but capable of being thrown into convolutions. 9th. Spouts in the manner
of a whale. 10th. Like a long nun-buoy." He concludes with the
question--"To which of the recognized classes of created beings can this
huge rover of the ocean be referred?"
I reply: "To the Cephalopoda. There is not one of the above judiciously
summarized characteristics that is not supplied by the great calamary,
and its ascertained habits and peculiar mode of locomotion.
"Only a geologist can fully appreciate how enormously the balance of
probability is contrary to the supposition that any of the gigantic
marine saurians of the secondary deposits should have continued to live
up to the present time. And yet I am bound to say, that this does not
amount to an impossibility, for the evidence against it is entirely
negative. Nor is the conjecture that there may be in existence some
congeners of these great reptiles inconsistent with zoological science.
Dr. J. E. Gray, late of the British Museum, a strict zoologist, is cited
by Mr. Gosse as having long ago expressed his opinion that some
undescribed form exists which is intermediate between the tortoises and
the serpents."[33]
[33] Dr. Gray wrote in his 'Synopsis of Genera of Reptiles,' in the
Annals of Philosophy, 1825: "There is every reason to believe from
general structure that there exists an affinity between the
tortoises and the snakes; but the genus that exactly unites them is
at present unknown to European naturalists; which is not
astonishing when we consider the immense number of undescribed
animals which are daily occurring. If I may be allowed to speculate
from the peculiarities of structure which I have observed, I am
inclined to think that the union will most probably take place by
some newly discovered genera allied to the marine or fluviatile
soft-skinned turtles and the marine serpent."
[Illustration: FIG. 25.--THE "SEA SERPENT," ON THE ENALIOSAURIAN
HYPOTHESIS.
_After_ Mr. P. H. GOSSE, F.R.S.]