New Orleans daily crescent., 1859-11-10

In a work recently published, entitled " Through
Norway by w. Mattheu Williams, we find the
following explanation of the mystery which has
always attached to the g Kraken,' great Scand
navian sea serpent 1t may answer very well, so
far as that interesting reptile is concerned, but
how about the varmint that annually makes its
appearance in the region of Cape Cod, Nahant,
ETC.?
At about eight in the evening, as we approached
the Satten ford, lat. 81 deg, | observed Curl
ously shaped ship, and tried to define it with a
telescope. Presently it diminished to half its
former size, then rose again. but was then seem
ingly undermined by sort of notch or open angle
formed by one portion of it with the surface of the
horizon. Further examination showed that it
could not be ship, and many opinions We're eS-
pressed concerning it; but at last discovered its
real nature. 1t the head of the veritable
:, Kraken,' the great Scandinavian sea serpent,
the angle being the monsters mouth, his upper
jaw only being above water. The folds of his
enormously long body were seen stretching along
the horizon, now rising, now sinking, all in con
tnuous motion.
At the most moderate calculation its length must
have been three or four miles, from the uplifted
head to the last visible fold; and how far the point
of its tail might be from that will not venture to
the greater part of it invisible all at once. AT
one moment the head disappeared almost entirely,
at another time only the head and extreme folds
were visible, then more than half of the tail end
| had gone
| Why then, have neither geologists nor fishermen
found any fossil recent remains of this creature
Simply because they have not properly sought for
them. The petrifactions exist abundanty. They
may be found hereabouts, in the form of low
rocky ridges, stretching in long lines with spaces
of sea between them, like the Hestmann's messen-
gers. Some start abruptly out of the water and
rise to fifty, hundred, or more feet in hight
These are the heads: the low ridges are the coils
of the body of the kraken.
Towards the end of a long, clear, glaring sum
mer's day, after the suns rays (Which here are
| powerful to degree incredible to those who have
not felt thcm) have been for eighteen or twenty
hours continually pouring upon these rocks, which
from the nature of their surface, excellent alb
sorbers of heat, they become considerably hotter
than the surrounding sea, and are covered with q
layer or rarited air, continually ascending ant
waving about and retracting the light very diff
/ ferenty from the denser air oyer the interme
diate sea.
Now, let us suppose a line of these low rock.
Just visible above the horizon, and between then
and the spectators eye number of other low
rocks, which he, raised on ships deck, look:
1t is evident that, he moves along, he vii
see a particular point on the horizon sometimes
over an unbroken line of sea, or sometimes owe
one more of these low, warm rocks, with a rari
fled atmosphere above them. Any one who il
acquainted with the rudimentary principles o
optics will perceive that, under these crcum
stances, an apparent undulating motion would b.
given to objects on the horizon. They would ap
pear to rise or fall, according as he viewed then
througha denser or rarer atmosphere; and thu
the waving of the coils of the serpents body is ac
counted for. This may be illustrated by holding
hot poker between the eye and distant objec
which is seen just above the poker.
But how about the undermining of the head-roc
forming the serpent's upifted jaw? This is a
easily accounted for, though the principles upo
which it depends are not so popuarly understood
One of the most beautiful illustrations of the natl
ematcal consstency-so to speak-of Nature
laws, is a curious consequence of the law, that i
given body, the size of the angle of ordinary r,
fraction bears fixed ratio to that of the angle
r incidence. Hence under certain circumstance.
the thinnest film of air is absolutely opaque-mor
Opaque than dense metal for gold leaf allows som
light to pass through it,. Such film of air admi
hs s of ht ghnes es Tie but
polished silver.