constant feature, which seems entirely inconsistent with the belief
that the creature can be a serpent. The animal has always shown a
large portion of its length, from 20 to 60 feet, above the surface
of the water, and without any evident signs of undulation, either
vertically or horizontally. Now, apart from all zoological evidence,
our knowledge of physical laws will not permit us to believe that the
portion thus visible above the surface was propelled by the undulations
of a portion concealed below the surface, unless this latter portion
largely exceeded the former in bulk. A true fish does not swim for any
length of time with any but a very small portion of its body above
water; probably large eels never show even a head or fin above water
for more than a few seconds when not at rest. Cetaceans, owing to the
layers of blubber which float them up, remain often for a long time
with a portion of their bulk out of the water, and the larger sort
often swim long distances with the head and fore-part out of water.
But, even then, the greater part of the creature’s bulk is under water,
and the driving apparatus, the anterior fins and the mighty tail, are
constantly under water (when the animal is urging its way horizontally,
be it understood). A sea creature, in fact, whatever its nature, which
keeps any considerable volume of its body out of water constantly,
while travelling a long distance, must of necessity have a much greater
volume all the time under water, and must have its propelling apparatus
under water. Moreover, if the propulsion is not effected by fins,
paddles, a great flat tail, or these combined, but by the undulations
of the animal’s own body, then the part out of water must of necessity
be affected by these undulations, unless it is very small in volume
and length compared with the part under water. I assert both these
points as matters depending on physical laws, and without fear that the
best-informed zoologist can adduce any instances to the contrary. It
is in fact physically impossible that such instances should exist.
It would not be saying too much to assert that if the so-called
sea-serpent were really a serpent, its entire length must be nearer
1000 than 100 feet. This, of course, is utterly incredible. We are,
therefore, forced to the belief that the creature is not a serpent.
If it were a long-necked reptile, with a concealed body much bulkier
than the neck, the requirements of floatation would be satisfied; if
to that body there were attached powerful paddles, the requirements
of propulsion would be satisfied. The theory, then, suggested, first
by Mr. Newman, later but independently by Mr. Stirling, and advocated
since by several naturalists of repute, is simply that the so-called
sea-serpent is a modern representative of the long-necked plesiosaurian
reptile to which has been given the name of the _enaliosaurus_.
Creatures of this kind prevailed in that era when what is called the
lias was formed, a fossiliferous stratum belonging to the secondary or
mesozoic rocks. They are not found in the later or tertiary rocks, and
thereon an argument might be deduced against their possible existence
in the present, or post-tertiary, period; but, as will presently be
shown, this argument is far from being conclusive. The enaliosaurian
reptiles were “extraordinary,” says Lyell, “for their number, size, and
structure.” Like the ichthyosauri, or fish-lizards, the enaliosauri
(or serpent-turtles, as they might almost be called) were carnivorous,
their skeletons often enclosing the fossilized remains of half-digested
fishes. They had extremely long necks, with heads very small compared
with the body. They are supposed to have lived chiefly in narrow seas
and estuaries, and to have breathed air like the modern whales and
other aquatic mammals. Some of them were of formidable dimensions,
though none of the skeletons yet discovered indicate a length of more
than 35 feet. It is not, however, at all likely that the few skeletons
known indicate the full size attained by these creatures. Probably,
indeed, we have the remains of only a few out of many species, and
some species existing in the mesozoic period may have as largely
exceeded those whose skeletons have been found, as the boa-constrictor
exceeds the common ringed snake. It is also altogether probable that
in the struggle for existence during which the enaliosaurian reptiles
have become _almost_ extinct (according to the hypothesis we are
considering), none but the largest and strongest had any chance, in
which case the present representatives of the family would largely
exceed in bulk their progenitors of the mesozoic period.
A writer in the _Times_ of November 2, 1848, under the signature
F. G. S., pointed out how many of the external characters of the
creature seen from the _Dædalus_ corresponded with the belief that it
was a long-necked plesiosaurus. “Geologists,” he said, “are agreed in
the inference that the plesiosauri carried their necks, which must
have resembled the bodies of serpents, above the water, while their
propulsion was effected by large paddles working beneath, the short but
stout tail acting the part of a rudder.... In the letter and drawing
of Captain M’Quhæ ... we have ... the short head, the serpent-like
neck, carried several feet above the water. Even the bristly mane in
certain parts of the back, so unlike anything found in serpents, has
its analogue in the iguana, to which animal the plesiosaurus has been
compared by some geologists. But I would most of all insist upon the
peculiarity of the animal’s progression, which could only have been
effected with the evenness and at the rate described by an apparatus of
fins or paddles, not possessed by serpents, but existing in the highest
perfection in the plesiosaurus.”
At this stage a very eminent naturalist entered the field—Professor
Owen. He dwelt first on a certain characteristic of Captain M’Quhæ’s
letter which no student of science could fail to notice—the definite
statement that the creature _was_ so and so, where a scientific
observer would simply have said that the creature presented such and
such characteristics. “No sooner was the captain’s attention called to
the object,” says Professor Owen, “than ‘it was discovered to be an
enormous serpent,’” though in reality the true nature of the creature
could not be determined even from the observations made during the
whole time that it remained visible. Taking, however, “the more certain
characters,” the “head with a convex, moderately capacious cranium,
short, obtuse muzzle, gape not extending further than to beneath the
eye, which (the eye) is rather small, round, filling closely the
palpebral aperture” (that is, the eyelids fit closely[25]); “colour and
surface as stated; nostrils indicated in the drawing by a crescentic
mark at the end of the nose or muzzle. All these,” proceeds Owen,
“are the characters of the head of a warm-blooded mammal, none of
them those of a cold-blooded reptile or fish. Body long, dark brown,
not undulating, without dorsal or other apparent fins, ‘but something
like the mane of a horse, or rather a bunch of sea-weed, washed about
its back.’” He infers that the creature had hair, showing only where
longest on the back, and therefore that the animal was not a mammal
of the whale species but rather a great seal. He then shows that the
sea-elephant, or _Phoca proboscidea_, which attains the length of
from 20 to 30 feet, was the most probable member of the seal family
to be found about 300 miles from the western shore of the southern
end of Africa, in latitude 24° 44´. Such a creature, accidentally
carried from its natural domain by a floating iceberg, would have
(after its iceberg had melted) to urge its way steadily southwards,
as the supposed sea-serpent was doing; and probably the creature
approached the _Dædalus_ to scan her “capabilities as a resting-place,
as it paddled its long, stiff body past the ship.” “In so doing it
would raise a head of the form and colour described and delineated
by Captain M’Quhæ”—its head only, be it remarked, corresponding
with the captain’s description. The neck also would be of the right
diameter. The thick neck, passing into an inflexible trunk, the longer
and coarser hair on the upper part of which would give rise to the
idea “explained by the similes above cited” (of a mane or bunch of
sea-weed), the paddles would be out of sight; and the long eddy and
wake created by the propelling action of the tail would account for the
idea of a long serpentine body, at least for this idea occurring to one
“looking at the strange phenomenon with a sea-serpent in his mind’s
eye.” “It is very probable that not one on board the _Dædalus_ ever
before beheld a gigantic seal freely swimming in the open ocean.” The
excitement produced by the strange spectacle, and the recollection of
“old Pontoppidan’s sea-serpent with the mane,” would suffice, Professor
Owen considered, to account for the metamorphosis of a sea-elephant
into a maned sea-serpent.
This was not the whole of Professor Owen’s argument; but it may be well
to pause here, to consider the corrections immediately made by Captain
M’Quhæ; it may be noticed, first, that Professor Owen’s argument
seems sufficiently to dispose of the belief that the creature really
was a sea-serpent, or any cold-blooded reptile. And this view of the
matter has been confirmed by later observations. But few, I imagine,
can readily accept the belief that Captain M’Quhæ and his officers
had mistaken a sea-elephant for a creature such as they describe and
picture. To begin with, although it might be probable enough that
no one on board the _Dædalus_ had ever seen a gigantic seal freely
swimming in the open ocean—a sight which Professor Owen himself had
certainly never seen—yet we can hardly suppose they would not have
known a sea-elephant under such circumstances. Even if they had never
seen a sea-elephant at all, they would surely know what such an animal
is like. No one could mistake a sea-elephant for any other living
creature, even though his acquaintance with the animal were limited to
museum specimens or pictures in books. The supposition that the entire
animal, that is, its entire length, should be mistaken for 30 or 40
feet of the length of a serpentine neck, seems, in my judgment, as
startling as the ingenious theory thrown out by some naturalists when
they first heard of the giraffe—to the effect that some one of lively
imagination had mistaken the entire body of a short-horned antelope for
the neck of a much larger animal!
Captain M’Quhæ immediately replied:—“I assert that neither was it
a common seal nor a sea-elephant; its great length and its totally
different physiognomy precluding the possibility of its being a _Phoca_
of any species. The head was flat, and not a capacious vaulted cranium;
nor had it a stiff, inflexible trunk—a conclusion to which Professor
Owen has jumped, most certainly not justified by my simple statement,
that ‘no portion of the 60 feet seen by us was used in propelling it
through the water, either by vertical or horizontal undulation.’”
He explained that the calculation of the creature’s length was made
before, not after, the idea had been entertained that the animal was
a serpent, and that he and his officers were “too well accustomed
to judge of lengths and breadths of objects in the sea to mistake a
real substance and an actual living body, coolly and dispassionately
contemplated, at so short a distance too, for the ‘eddy caused by
the action of the deeply immersed fins and tail of a rapidly moving,
gigantic seal raising its head above the water,’ as Professor Owen
imagines, in quest of its lost iceberg.” He next disposed of Owen’s
assertion that the idea of clothing the serpent with a mane had been
suggested by old Pontoppidan’s story, simply because he had never seen
Pontoppidan’s account or heard of Pontoppidan’s sea-serpent, until
he had told his own tale in London. Finally, he added, “I deny the
existence of excitement, or the possibility of optical illusion. I
adhere to the statement as to form, colour, and dimensions, contained
in my report to the Admiralty.”
A narrative which appeared in the _Times_ early in 1849 must be
referred to in this place, as not being readily explicable by Professor
Owen’s hypothesis. It was written by Mr. R. Davidson, superintending
surgeon, Najpore Subsidiary Force Kamptee, and was to the following
effect (I abridge it considerably):—When at a considerable distance
south-west of the Cape of Good Hope, Mr. Davidson, Captain Petrie, of
the _Royal Saxon_, a steerage passenger, and the man at the wheel, saw
“an animal of which no more correct description could be given than
that by Captain M’Quhæ. It passed within 35 yards of the ship, without
altering its course in the least; but as it came right abreast of us it
slowly turned its head towards us.” About one-third of the upper part
of its body was above water, “in nearly its whole length; and we could
see the water curling up on its breast as it moved along, but by what
means it moved we could not perceive.” They _saw this creature in its
whole length_ with the exception of a small portion of the tail which
was under water; and by comparing its length with that of the _Royal
Saxon_, 600 feet, when exactly alongside in passing, they calculated it
to be in length as well as in other dimensions greater than the animal
described by Captain M’Quhæ.
In the year 1852 two statements were made, one by Captain Steele, 9th
Lancers, the other by one of the officers of the ship _Barham_ (India
merchantman), to the effect that an animal of a serpentine appearance
had been seen about 500 yards from that ship (in longitude 40° E. and
37° 16´ S., that is, east of the south-eastern corner of Africa). “We
saw him,” said the former, “about 16 or 20 feet out of the water, and
he _spouted_ a long way from his head”—that is, I suppose, he spouted
to some distance, not, as the words really imply, at a part of his neck
far removed from the head. “Down his back he had a crest like a cock’s
comb, and was going very slowly through the water, but left a wake of
about 50 or 60 feet, as if dragging a long body after him. The captain
put the ship off her course to run down to him, but as we approached
him he went down. His colour was green with light spots. He was seen by
every one on board.” The other witness gives a similar account, adding
that the creature kept moving his head up and down, and was surrounded
by hundreds of birds. “We at first thought it was a dead whale....
When we were within 100 yards he slowly sank into the depths of the
sea; while we were at dinner he was seen again.” Mr. Alfred Newton,
the well-known naturalist, guarantees his personal acquaintance with
one of the recipients of the letters just quoted from. But such a
guarantee is, of course, no sufficient guarantee of the authenticity
of the narrative. Even if the narrative be accepted, the case seems a
very doubtful one. The birds form a suspicious element in the story.
Why should birds cluster around a living sea creature? It seems to
me probable that the sea-weed theory, presently to be noticed, gives
the best explanation of this case. Possibly some great aggregation of
sea-weed was there, in which were entangled divers objects desirable
to birds and to fishes. These last may have dragged the mass under
water when the ship approached, being perhaps more or less entangled
in it—and it floated up again afterwards. The spouting may have been
simply the play of water over the part mistaken for the head.
The sea-weed theory of the sea-serpent was broached in February, 1849,
and supported by a narrative not unlike the last. When the British
ship _Brazilian_ was becalmed almost exactly in the spot where M’Quhæ
had seen his monster, Mr. Herriman, the commander, perceived something
right abeam, about half a mile to the westward, “stretched along the
water to the length of about 25 or 30 feet, and perceptibly moving from
the ship with a steady, sinuous motion. The head, which seemed to be
lifted several feet above the waters, had something resembling a mane,
running down to the floating portion, and within about 6 feet of the
tail it forked out into a sort of double fin.” Mr. Herriman, his first
mate, Mr. Long, and several of the passengers, after surveying the
object for some time, came to the unanimous conclusion that it must be
the sea-serpent seen by Captain M’Quhæ. “As the _Brazilian_ was making
no headway, Mr. Herriman, determining to bring all doubts to an issue,
had a boat lowered down, and taking two hands on board, together with
Mr. Boyd, of Peterhead, near Aberdeen, one of the passengers, who
acted as steersman under the direction of the captain, they approached
the monster, Captain Herriman standing on the bow of the boat, armed
with a harpoon to commence the onslaught. The combat, however, was
not attended with the danger which those on board apprehended; for
on coming close to the object it was found to be nothing more than
an immense piece of sea-weed, evidently detached from a coral reef
and drifting with the current, which sets constantly to the westward
in this latitude, and which, together with the swell left by the
subsidence of the gale, gave it the sinuous, snake-like motion.”
A statement was published by Captain Harrington in the _Times_ of
February, 1858, to the effect that from his ship _Castilian_, then
distant ten miles from the north-east end of St. Helena, he and
his officers had seen a huge marine animal within 20 yards of the
ship; that it disappeared for about half a minute, and then made its
appearance in the same manner again, showing distinctly its neck and
head about 10 or 12 feet out of the water. “Its head was shaped like
a long nun-buoy,” proceeds Captain Harrington, “and I suppose the
diameter to have been 7 or 8 feet in the largest part, with a kind of
scroll, or tuft, of loose skin encircling it about 2 feet from the top;
the water was discoloured for several hundred feet from its head....
From what we saw from the deck, we conclude that it must have been over
200 feet long. The boatswain and several of the crew who observed it
from the top-gallant forecastle,[26] (query, cross-trees?) state that
it was more than double the length of the ship, in which case it must
have been 500 feet. Be that as it may, I am convinced that it belonged
to the serpent tribe; it was of a dark colour about the head, and was
covered with several white spots.”
This immediately called out a statement from Captain F. Smith, of
the ship _Pekin_, that on December 28, not far from the place where
the _Dædalus_ had encountered the supposed sea-serpent, he had seen,
at a distance of about half a mile, a creature which was declared by
all hands to be the great sea-serpent, but proved eventually to be a
piece of gigantic sea-weed. “I have no doubt,” he says, that the great
sea-serpent seen from the _Dædalus_ “was a piece of the same weed.”
It will have been noticed that the sea-weed sea-serpents, seen by
Captain F. Smith and by Captain Herriman, were both at a distance
of half a mile, at which distance one can readily understand that a
piece of sea-weed might be mistaken for a living creature. This is
rather different from the case of the _Dædalus_ sea-serpent, which
passed so near that had it been a man of the captain’s acquaintance
he could have recognized that man’s features with the naked eye. The
case, too, of Captain Harrington’s sea-serpent, seen within 20 yards
of the _Castilian_, can hardly be compared to those cases in which
sea-weed, more than 800 yards from the ship, was mistaken for a living
animal. An officer of the _Dædalus_ thus disposed of Captain Smith’s
imputation:—“The object seen from the ship was beyond all question a
living animal, moving rapidly through the water against a cross sea,
and within five points of a fresh breeze, with such velocity that
the water was surging against its chest as it passed along at a rate
probably of ten miles per hour. Captain M’Quhæ’s first impulse was to
tack in pursuit, but he reflected that we could neither lay up for it
nor overhaul it in speed. There was nothing to be done, therefore, but
to observe it as accurately as we could with our glasses as it came up
under our lee quarter and passed away to windward, being at its nearest
position not more than 200 yards from us; _the eye, the mouth, the
nostril, the colour, and the form, all being most distinctly visible
to us_.... My impression was that it was rather of a lizard than a
serpentine character, as its movement was steady and uniform, _as if
propelled by fins_, not by any undulatory power.”
But all the evidence heretofore obtained respecting the sea-serpent,
although regarded by many naturalists, Gosse, Newman, Wilson, and
others, as demonstrating the existence of some as yet unclassified
monster of the deep, seems altogether indecisive by comparison with
that which has recently been given by the captain, mates, and crew
of the ship _Pauline_. In this case, assuredly, we have not to deal
with a mass of sea-weed, the floating trunk of a tree, a sea-elephant
hastening to his home amid the icebergs, or with any of the other more
or less ingenious explanations of observations previously made. We have
either the case of an actual living animal, monstrous, fierce, and
carnivorous, or else the five men who deposed on oath to the stated
facts devised the story between them, and wilfully perjured themselves
for no conceivable purpose—that, too, not as men have been known to
perjure themselves under the belief that none could know of their
infamy, but with the certainty on the part of each that four others
(any one of whom might one day shame him and the rest by confessing)
knew the real facts of the case.
The story of the _Pauline_ sea-serpent ran simply as follows, as
attested at the Liverpool police-court:—“We, the undersigned, captain,
officers, and crew of the bark _Pauline_, of London, do solemnly
and sincerely declare, that on July 8, 1875, in latitude 5° 13´ S.,
longitude 35° 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 30 feet, and its girth 8 or 9 feet. The serpent
whirled its victim round and round for about fifteen minutes, and then
suddenly dragged the whale to the bottom, head first.—George Drevat,
master; Horatio Thompson, chief mate; John H. Landells, second mate;
William Lewarn, steward; Owen Baker, A.B. Again on the 13th July a
similar serpent was seen about 200 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 an ordinary seaman.—George Drevat. A few
moments afterwards it was seen elevated some 60 feet perpendicularly
in the air by the chief officer and two seamen, whose signatures are
affixed.—Horatio Thompson, Owen Baker, William Lewarn.”
The usual length of the cachalot or sperm whale is about 70 feet, and
its girth about 50 feet. If we assign to the unfortunate whale which
was captured on this occasion, a length of only 50 feet, and a girth
of only 35 feet, we should still have for the entire length of the
supposed serpent about 100 feet. This can hardly exceed the truth,
since the three whales are called large sperm whales. With a length of
100 feet and a girth of about 9 feet, however, a serpent would have
no chance in an attempt to capture a sperm whale 50 feet long and 35
feet in girth, for the simple reason that the whale would be a good
deal heavier than its opponent. In a contest in open sea, where one
animal seeks to capture another bodily, weight is all-important. We
can hardly suppose the whale could be so compassed by the coils of his
enemy as to be rendered powerless; in fact, the contest lasted fifteen
minutes, during the whole of which time the so-called serpent was
whirling its victim round, though more massive than itself, through
the water. On the whole, it seems reasonable to conclude—in fact, the
opinion is almost forced upon us—that besides the serpentine portion
of its bulk, which was revealed to view, the creature, thus whirling
round a large sperm whale, had a massive concealed body, provided with
propelling paddles of enormous power. _These_ were at work all the time
the struggle went on, enabling the creature to whirl round its enemy
easily, whereas a serpentine form, with two-thirds of its length, at
least, coiled close round another body, would have had no propulsive
power left, or very little, in the remaining 30 feet of its length,
including both the head and tail ends beyond the coils. Such a creature
as an enaliosaurus _could_ no doubt have done what a serpent of twice
the supposed length would have attempted in vain—viz., dragged down
into the depths of the sea the mighty bulk of a cachalot whale.