From the Westminster and Foreign Quarterly Review. THE GREAT SEA SERPENT. 1. The Great Sea Serpent. An Essay, showing its History, authentic, fictitious, and hypothetical. By Edward Newman. 2. The Zoologist. London: John Van Voorst, Paternoster-row, 1848. patronage of government, and of learned societies, might be thereby compromised. These remarks are, however, levelled at the system, not at individuals; and they have been elicited by the more than equivocal reception accorded to an apparently trust ance of a certain illustrious individual, whose positive identification might possibly upset some cherished hypothesis, and lead to the necessity of numerous modifications of aecepted seientific dogmas. THERE is, perhaps, no phase of the human mind more curious or inexplicable than that state of servile submission to authority in matters of belief, which characterizes the majority of mortals. It is, indeed, a humiliating spectacle to behold full-grown men depending implicitly for opinions on the dic-worthy announcement of the recent appeartates of their fellow-men; prostrating their intellect, distrusting the evidence of their senses, and absolutely turning a deaf ear to conclusions, however obvious, if not reaching them through the channel of acknowledged authority! Can they not comprehend that just conclusions are to be attained alone by a studiously careful consideration of a subject in all its bearings, not by adopting the views the mere ipse dixit—of any man? By the latter course, we not only invest ourselves in a tattered garment of prejudices which every one can see through, but we must also cede the fact, that we have purloined the disreputable clothing which we parade. Now, as there is no position so fatal to the admission of truth as the position of prejudice, so is there no prejudice so degrading as that which is purloined. We do not hesitate to say, that the progress of science in this country is arrested by the strong hand of self-elected authority, and the promulgation of scientific truth retarded by those who arrogate to themselves an exclusive monopoly of philosophic lore. This state of affairs is baneful in two ways: it not only checks the dissemination of recently discovered truths, but it invests the select few with the power of disseminating and positively enforcing the reception of error. It moreover persecutes, with relentless severity, every individual who may have the courage to expose the blunders of any magnate whose influence upon the distribution of the scientific From their lucubrations, lately paraded before the public, it appears that no one connected with the coteries of scientific exclusives has ever seen the animal whose history Mr. Newman has given us. No bone of a sea-serpent exists in the College of Surgeons. No authentic fragment has reached the British Museum. The eye-witnesses are confined to some two thousand mariners or countrymen, who have no acquaintance with the terms nematoneurous, homogangliatous, and the like; and the evidence cited in support of the phenomena observed is given by parties scarcely amounting to an eighth part of their entire number, and who, in their general knowledge of technical natural history are not a whit before the great body of eye-witnesses from whom they appear to have been selected at random; and, therefore, neither the great mass of eyewitnesses, nor those selected to give evidence, are worthy of the slightest credence! So say the exclusives. The present age exhibits many similar instances of learned incredulity; public lectures have been given to show that Shakspeare never existed, that Ben Jonson is a myth; and our witty contemporary, "Punch," declares that Pickford is a myth also. Yet at this very moment credulity is making exhibitions equally eccentric, and millions believe in the universal efficacy of bread-pills, if sold in the name of some liberally advertising quack doctor. It were a study worthy of the psychologist, this simultaneous exhibition of stolid incredulity and headlong confidence; the first would, perhaps, be traced to a preponderance of self-esteem, the second to a too great development of veneration for others. imagined facts; drawing ideal pictures of nature, and reasoning on them as truths; throwing aside realities for fictions; and hermetically sealing their eyes and closing their ears against the entrance of information, because information itself is supposed to clash with preconceived opinions, to interfere with hypotheses to which they are pledged, and, in fine, to damage their claim to the exclusive disposal of scientific knowledge; their object is to represent all matters as they would have them, without any reference to what they are. But let us proceed with our inquiry. The first witness whom we shall call on the part of the sea-serpent is the Rev. Mr. Egede, whose journal of the Greenland mission is a master-piece of minute accuracy; it is illustrated with figures of the human inhabitants, the bears, seals, whales, birds, and plants, distinguished by a fidelity which at that date, 1734, is almost without parallel; indeed, the peculiar structure of the head of the narwhal, or sea-unicorn, proving the single horn to be a tooth on one side of the jaw, developed at the expense of the corresponding tooth on the other side of the jaw, is exhibited with a minute attention to anatomical truth that leaves nothing to be desired. Egede's statements are equally trustworthy with his drawings; there is no attempt at exaggeration, and he appears to be actuated by no other motive than that of modestly disseminating a knowledge of natural history, facts which he had himself observed, and which he believed to be before It seems to us that the witnesses called on behalf of the sea-serpent afford the very best evidence that could be wished. The majority of our professors and curators would not know a whale from a porpoise, a porpoise from a shark, a shark from an ichthyosaurus, if they beheld these creatures in their native element; it is when beasts are stuffed with straw, or reduced to skeletons, or when fragments of their bones are placed under the compound microscope, that the knowledge of them among these savans begins and ends; but the mariner, the whaler, the harpooner, the porpoise-shooter, the practical fisherman-these know the creatures of the deep from each other, and can pronounce with wonderful exactitude, if they see but the smallest portion above the water; they are the men whose sight is sharpened by use, whose book is nature, whose knowledge is practical, and whose evidence on such a subject is far better than any other. The men "who go down to the sea in ships" are they of whom we must inquire its wonders. They, indeed, may see a schull of porpoises follow-unrecorded. ing each other, head to tail; they may watch their gambols, and haply single out a big one for a trial of the harpoon or the rifle; but no seaman would mistake them for anything else: the sight is as familiar to him as a string of lawyers to a dweller in Lincoln's Inn Fields, and has certainly no greater similarity to a serpent. In all our inquiries we must have regard to the capacity of a witness for giving information. Even the microscope, the secret-revealing implement of the learned, requires a kind of education on the part of the beholder. Doubtless the mariner who first peeped through the wonderworking tube, would arrive at conclusions as erroneous as the learned fool who comments on the creatures of the deep; but he surely would not venture to print his blunders, or pass off his crude observations as worthy the attention of the world. And yet our savans are forever doing this; and forever giving opinions on subjects which they cannot understand; promulgating hypotheses founded on Not the slightest doubt has ever been entertained, as far as we can discover, of his veracity, piety, and singlemindedness; the indubitable value of the greater part of his observations is sufficient to establish the authority of the whole. The single blot on this reverend gentleman's character appears to be his having seen a sea-serpent. He writes as follows: "On the 6th of July, 1734, there appeared a very large and frightful sea-monster, which raised itself so high out of the water, that its head reached above our main-top. It had a long sharp snout, and spouted water like a whale; and very broad flappers. The body seemed to be covered with scales, and the skin was uneven and wrinAfter some time, the creature plunged backkled, and the lower part was formed like a snake. wards into the water, and then turned its tail up above the surface, a whole ship-length from the head. The following evening we had very bad weather." The statement is accompanied by a figure in which the characters above enumerated | existence of this fish; and some of our north are shown. Now, we have no objection to make every deduction that the most rigid cross-examination could elicit; we are perfectly willing to make every allowance for the emotions of wonder and fear; we will not insist on the height to which the head was raised, or the sharpness of the snout, or the breadth of the flappers, or the scales on the skin, or the distance from the head to the tail. Let the incredulous pare down the marvellous as much as he pleases, and then, after every allowance and deduction, let him say what Mr. Egede saw. The high character of the narrator, and his otherwise unquestioned veracity, are sufficient guaranties for his having seen something his extraordinary knowledge of the Cetacea and seals, extending to the most minute distinctions of species, proves that his monster could not have been one of these tribes. It seems to us indisputable, that Mr. Egede, from personal observation, and with rigid integrity of purpose, describes and fig ures an animal decidedly and widely different from any living creature hitherto admitted into our systematic classifications. That it was a sea-serpent, or a serpent of any other kind, certainly does not appear, neither does the writer make any such assertion. the figure, description and name of Egede's sea monster," we find nothing to constitute it a serpent; this name appears to have been subsequently applied; and yet, so great is the ingenuity of man, that this very name has been tortured into a proof of the falsehood of Mr. Egede's statement. In We will now proceed to Pontoppidan's "Natural History of Norway," published shortly after Egede's "Journal," and quoting that author's description. Pontoppidan was bishop of Bergen, a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Copenhagen, evidently a good naturalist, and withal a man of unimpeachable veracity; he exhibits no undue credulity; and although he has heard from sailors, and others residing near the coast, a variety of marvellous stories concerning the sea monster, he quotes them doubtingly, and puts his reader on his guard against giving them implicit credence; that a fixed and ineradicable belief in this sea monster existed universally along the coast in Pontoppidan's time, is shown by the following quotation: "In all my inquiry about these affairs, I have hardly spoke with any intelligent person, born in the manor of Nordland, who was not able to give a pertinent answer, and strong assurances of the traders, that come here every year with their when they are seriously asked whether there be merchandise, think it a very strange, question, if the question were put to them, whether there be any such creature; they think it as ridiculous as such fish as eel or cod." That an equally firm and ineradicable belief exists at the present day, is shown by a parallel passage, just published in the "Zoologist." "As some interest has been excited by the alleged appearance of a sea-serpent, I venture to transmit a few remarks on the subject, which you may or may not think worthy of insertion in your columns. There does not appear to be a single well-authenticated instance of these monsters having been seen in any southern latitudes; but in the north of Europe, notwithstanding the fabulous character so long ascribed to Pontoppidan's description, I am convinced that they both exist and are frequently seen. During three summers spent in Norway, I have repeatedly conA parish versed with the natives on this subject. journey south of Drontheim, an intelligent person, priest residing on Romsdal fjord, about two days' whose veracity I have no reason to doubt, gave me a circumstantial account of one which he had himself seen. It rose within thirty yards of the boat in which he was, and swam parallel with it for a considerable time. Its head is described as equalling a small cask in size, and its mouth, nished with formidable teeth; its neck was which it repeatedly opened and shut, was fursmaller but its body-of which he supposed that he saw about half on the surface of the water-was not less in girth than that of a moderate sized horse. Another gentleman, in whose house I stayed, had also seen one, and gave a similar account of it. It also came near his boat upon the fjord, when it was fired at, upon which it turned and pursued them to the shore, which was luckily near, when it disappeared. They expressed great surprise at the general disbelief attaching to the existence of these animals amongst naturalists, and assured me that there was scarcely a sailor accustomed to those inland lakes, who had not seen them at one time or another." -The Zoologist, p. 2311. But Pontoppidan does not satisfy himself with any general expressions of belief, however distinct and explicit; he collects and publishes the most direct and positive evidence, and derived from sources which in the present age we should call the most respectable. The first of these is Laurence de Ferry, at that time commander of Bergen. We subjoin the entire statement, premising that the commander, in order to satisfy the bishop, took two of the seamen who were with him before a magistrate, when they both solemnly swore to the truth of the foÏlowing particulars "The latter end of August, in the year 1746, as I was on a voyage, in my return from Trundtheim, in a very calm and hot day, having a mind to put in at Molde, it happened, that when we were arrived with my vessel within six English miles of the aforesaid Molde, being at a place called Jule-Næss, as I was reading in a book, I heard a kind of murmuring voice from amongst the men at the oars, who were eight in number, and observed that the man at the helm kept off from the land. Upon this I inquired what was the matter, and was informed that there was a sea-snake before us. I then ordered the man at the helm to keep to the land again, and to come up with this creature, of which I had heard so many stories. Though the fellows were under some apprehensions, they were obliged to obey my orders. In the mean time, this sea-snake passed by us, and we were obliged to tack the vessel about, in order to get nearer to it. As the snake swam faster than we could row, I took my gun, that was ready charged, and fired at it; on this he immediately plunged under the water. We rowed to the place where it sunk down, (which in the calm might be easily observed,) and lay upon our oars, thinking it would come up again to the surface; however, it did not. When the snake plunged down, the water appeared thick and red; perhaps some of the shot might wound it, the distance being very little. The head of this snake, which it held more than two feet above the surface of the water, resembled that of a horse. It was of a greyish color, and the mouth was quite black and very large. It had black eyes, and a long white mane, that hung down from the neck to the surface of the water. Besides the head and neck, we saw seven or eight folds or coils of this snake, which were very thick, and, as far as we could guess, there was about a fathom distance between each fold." After citing a variety of other instances, giving the names of his witnesses without reserve, Pontoppidan deduces this general conclusion from the entire evidence "It appears that this creature does not, like the eel or land-snake, taper gradually to a point, but the body, which looks to be as big as two hogsheads, grows remarkably small at once, just where the tail begins." And again— "The eyes of this creature are very large, and of a blue color, and look like a couple of bright pewter plates." Egede gives us the pointed head, the power of spouting water like a whale, the broad anterior flappers or paddles, the bulky trunk, and the pointed tail. Pontoppidan adds the enormous eyes, the mane, the dorsal protuberances, the sudden narrowing where the trunk ceases and the tail begins. The next author cited is Sir A. de Capell Brooke. Although in the course of his rambles in Scandinavia this worthy gentleman had not the pleasure of falling in with this creature himself, he nevertheless heard many statements from eye-witnesses respecting it; none of these, however, throw new light on the subject, or assign any characters to the animal which were not previously known. As far as they go, their tendency is to confirm the statements previously published; they relate to the years 1817, 18, 19, and 22. The only subsequent information from the locality in question is contained in the of the "Zoologist:" we fifteenth number quote the entire passage, without abbreviation or alteration. "In the neighborhood of Christiansand and Molde, in the province of Romsdal, several persons, highly respectable and credible witnesses, have reported that they have seen this animal. In general, they state that it has been seen in the larger Norwegian fjords, seldom in the open sea. In the large Light of the sea at Christiansand, it has been seen every year, though only in the warmest season, in the dog-days, and then only when the weather was perfectly calm and the surface of the water unruffled. The following persons, whose names are here mentioned, give the subjoined testimony:-Nils Roe, workman at Mr. William Knudtzon's, relates: 'I saw the the serpent twice, once at noon, and two days afterwards towards the evening, in the fjord at the back of Mr. Knudtzon's garden. The first time it was about a hundred feet distant. It swam first along the fjord, then afterwards direct over to the spot where I stood. I observed it for above half an hour. Some strangers who were on the opposite shore fired at it, when it disappeared. The second time it was further from me. It was small, perhaps twice as long as this room (about forty-four feet); while swimming, it made serpentine movements, some to the side, others up and down. I cannot state what thickness it was, but it appeared to be about as thick as a common snake in proportion to its length. It was thinner towards the tail. The head was several times slightly elevated above the surface of the water. The front of the head was rather pointed; the eyes were sharp, and glistened like those of a cat. From the back of the head a mane like that of a horse commenced, which wavThe ed backwards and forwards in the water. color of the animal was a blackish brown.' : "John Johnson (merchant, about sixty years of age) I saw the animal some years since in the fjord; it was about a thousand paces distant when nearest to me. It swam very swiftly in the same time that we rowed about a quarter of a mile to the side from it, it had swam about double the distance. I saw it most plainly when it swam in a semicircle round a tolerably large rock that obstructed its passage; in doing this, it partly raised itself above the surface of the water. Its color was blackish brown, and about the "Mr. William Knudtzon and Candidatus Thelength of this house (55 feet). With the excep- ologiæ Bochlum, gave the following written action of the head, I did not remark much of its countWe together saw the sea-serpent in a body, as that appeared but little above the surface. narrow fjord, at a distance of about one-sixteenth Judging from what I observed, I should say the of a mile (half an English mile,) for about a thickness of the body was about that of a stout quarter of an hour; afterwards it dived, and man. The agitation it caused in the water was came up so far from us, that we could not see it very strong. Its movements were serpentine, up plainly. The water was smooth as a mirror, and and down, like a leech swimming. Lars the animal had, as it moved on the surface, the Johnöen (fisherman at Smölen, about fifty years appearance of a serpent. Its motions were in unof age): I have several times seen the sea-ser- dulations, and so strong that white foam appeared pent; but, some time since, twelve years ago, in before it, and at the side, which stretched out the dog-days, in the fjord not far from here, one several fathoms. It did not appear very high afternoon as I was fishing in my boat, I saw it above the water, and its length was quite discerntwice in the course of two hours, and, for some ible. Once it stretched its head quite erect in time, quite near me. It came close to my boat, the air. The body was somewhat dark, and the so that it was only about six feet from me. I be- head nearly black; it had nearly the form of an came alarmed, recommended my soul to God, eel or snake, and a length of about one hundred laid down in the boat, and only held my head so feet, and in proportion to it an inconsiderable far over it that I could observe the serpent. It thickness. The breadth diminished remarkably swam now past the boat, that was agitated by the from the head, so much so that the tail ended in ripple caused by its movement in the water, a point. The head was long and small in prowhich was previously smooth, and afterwards portion to the throat, as the latter appeared much removed itself. After it had swam a considera- greater than the former, probably as it was furble distance from me, I began again to fish. Not nished with a mane.' Foged (Sheriff) Göttsche long afterwards, the serpent came close to the made the following remarks-'I saw the seaboat, which was strongly agitated by its move- serpent for some time in a small fjord, first from ments in the water. I laid down and remained a boat, afterwards from the beach, several minutes, quite still, and, notwithstanding my fright, kept a at a distance of from thirty to thirty-six feet. In watchful eye on the animal: it passed me, disap- the beginning, it swam round the fjord at Torvig; peared, and returned, though not so close as pre- afterwards it went into the deeps. I saw its head viously, and disappeared entirely when a light stretched considerably out of the water. I rewind arose, and ruffled the water. Its length marked as well two or three undulations of the was about five to six fathoms, and the body, fore part of the body. Its motion was not like which was as round as a serpent's, was about that of an eel, but consisted in waving undulatwo feet in diameter. The tail seemed to be very tions, up and down. They were excessively round. The head was about as long as a brandy strong, and caused tolerably large waves; they anker (ten-gallon cask), and about the same were largest at the forepart of the animal, and thickness; it was not pointed, but round. The towards the back gradually lessened. The eyes were very large, round, and sparkling. traces of them I discerned in a length of eight to Their size was about the diameter of the box ten fathoms, and a breadth of two to three here (five inches), and they were as red as my fathoms. The head seemed blunted, and had neckerchief (crimson). Close behind the head, the size and form of a ten-gallon cask; the una mane, like a horse's, commenced along the dulations of the body were round, and about the neck, and spread itself on both sides, right and dimensions of a good timber stock (twelve to left, while swimming on the water; it was of tol- fourteen inches square). The entire length of erably long hair. The mane, as well as the head the animal I could not judge, as it was not posand the rest of the body, was brown as this look-sible to observe the extremity. Its color appeared ing-glass frame (old mahogany). Spots, stripes of other colors I did not observe, nor were there any scales; it seemed as if the body was quite smooth. Its movements were occasionally fast and slow, which latter was the case when it neared my boat; I could clearly observe it; it was serpent-like, and moved up and down. The few undulations which those parts of the body and tail that were out of the water made, were scarcely a fathom in length. These undulations were not so high that I could see between them and the water.' When Lars Johnöen had given this explanation, he was shown the drawing which Pontoppidan has given of this animal. He looked at it with astonishment, smiled, and said he found a great resemblance between it and the animal he had seen. He likewise said that some of the other sea-serpents he had seen were a great deal longer than the one above described. to be dark gray. At the back of the head there was a mane, which was the same color as the rest of the body.' "The writer of this article received letters from Mr. Soren Knudtzon, stating that a seaserpent had been seen in the neighborhood of Christiansand by several people; and from Dr. Hoffman, a respectable surgeon in Molde, lying on a considerable fjord to the south of Christiansand, Rector Hammer, Mr. Kraft, curate, and several persons, very clearly saw, while on a journey, a sea-serpent of considerable size. "The Rev. Mr. Deinboll, Archdeacon of Molde, gives the following account of one which was seen last summer near Molde. The 28th of July, 1845, J. C. Lund, bookseller and printer; G. S. Krogh, merchant; Christian Flang, Lund's apprentice; and John Elgenses, laborer, were out on Romsdale-fjord, fishing. The sea was, after a |