The Concordia eagle. [volume] (Vidalia, La.) 1873-1890, 1877-03-03
THE GREAT UNKNOWN.
Professor Proctor on tho Supposed Ex-
lstenoe Of Sea Monsters.

lie std-SeTptlI HtiS lOhS DcSH iS-
garded by most persons as simply a
gigantic fraud. Either the object
which appeared like a sea-serpent was
sometimes altogether diferent-a float
ing tree entangled in seaweed, the SER
pentine outline of distant hills half lost
under a scudding haze, row of leap
ing porpOises, or, if a single living
creature at all, then one Of a known
species seen under unusual and decep-
tive conditions-or else the circum-
stanital accounts which could not be
thus explained away were corrections
of falsehood.
"Yet, as the naturalist Gosse long
since pointed out, on his curious essay
on The Great Unknown, it is alto
gether unlikely that men know all the
forms of animals which exist in the
ocean, and the antecedent probability
against the theory of the existence of
creatures such as the great sea-serpent
has been described to be is not suffi-
cient to outweigh the evidence which
has been given respecting such crea-
lures. No one who has read the
account given by the officers Of the
Dedalous, for instance, can for a mo-
ment suppose that they were deceived
in any Of the ways ingeniously inn
agined; we must assume that they all
told untruths before we can reject the
belief that some "a yet unknown sea
creature was seen by them. The
creature may quite possibly not have
been serpent properly so called, the
picture drawn by one Of the midship-
men may have been incorrect in de-
tails Gas professor Owen insisted it
must have BEEN; but, unless the whole
aHhir was a fraud, sea animal was
seen which had all the appearance of a
gigantic serpent.
"And the idea of fraud in such
matters is not nearly so reasonable as
many seem to imagine. Travellers are
sometimes said 10 tell marvellous stories;
but it is n noteworthy fact that in nine
cases out Of ten, the marvellous stories
of travellers have been confirmed.
Man Idiculed the tale, brought back
by those who had sailed far to the
south, that the sun there moves from
left to right, as you face his midday
place; but we know that those travellers
told the truth. The first account of
the giraffe was laughed to scorn, and
it was satisfactorily proven that no
such creature could possibly exist.
The gorilla would have been jeered
out of existence but for the fortunate
arrival of skeleton of his at an early
stage Of our acquaintance with that
prepossessing cousin Of ours.
"Monstrous cuttlefsh were thought
to be monstrous lies, till the Alecton,
in 1861, came upon one and captured
its tail, whose weight of forty pounds
led naturalists TO estimate the entire
weight of the creature at four thou
sand pounds, or nearly a couple of tons.
In 1873, again, two fishermen encoun-
tered gigantic cutie in Conception
bay, Newfoundland, whose arms were
about thirty-five in length (the fisher
men cut off from one arm a piece
twenty-five feet long while its bo.!y was
estimated at sixty feet in length and
five feet in diamcter-sO that the devil
fish of Victor Hugo's famous story was
Il mere baby cutie in comparison with
the Newfoundland monster. The mer.
maid, again, has been satisfactorily
identified with the manatee, or 'wO-
man fish, as the Portuguese call it,
which assumes, says Captain Scoresby,
such positions that the human appear
ance is very closely inflated
g As for stories of sea-serpents, natu-
ralists have been far less disposed to he
mcredulous than the general public.
DIR. Andrew Wilson, for instance, af. !
ter speaking of the recorded observa.
tons in much such terms as have
used above, says: I'VE NAV then
affirm safely that there are many veri. |
fed pieces of evidence on record of
strange marine forms having been met
with, which evidences, judged accord. |
ing 10 ordinary and common sense
rules, go to prove that certain hitherto |
undescribed marine organisms do cer>
tainly exist in the sea depths. As to |
the support which natural history can
give to the above proposition, 'zoolo-
gists can but admit be proceeds, the !
of the observation. Certain
and especially those of ma |
rine &c. q. certain whales, are known
to he of exceedingly rare occurrence. |
Our knowledge Of marine reptilla is
confeSsedly very small and, best of
all, there is no counter objection or /
feasible argument which the naturalist /
ran offer by way of denying the above .
proposition. lie would be forced TO .
admit the exist nee of purclv marine