The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1877-03-28
Strange Sea Monsters.

fraud. Either the object which APP
peared like a sea-serpent was some.
thing altogether difIerent--a floating
tree entangled in seaweed, the serpen
tine 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 q known
species seen under unusual and de-
ceptive conditioner else the circum-
stantial accounts which could not be
thus explained away were corcoc-
tiOns of falsehood. Yet, as the natur-
alist Gosse long since pointed out, in
his curious essay on "The Great Uu-
known, it is altogether unlikely that
men know all the forms of animals
which exist in the ocean, and the an
tecedent probability against theory of
the existence of creatures such as the
great sea serpent has been described
to be its not sufficient to outweigh the
evidence which has been given re-
specting such creatures. No one who
has read the account given by the of
fcers and men of the DGdaLus, for in-
stance, can for moment suppose that
they were deceived in any one of the
ways ingeniously imagined We must
assume that they all told untruths be-
fore we can reject the belief that seme
as yet unknown sea creature was seen
by them. That creature may quite
possibly not have beer n serpent 80
called, the picture drawn by one of
the midshipmen may have been in
correct in details Gas Professor Owen
insisted it must have beon)j but unless
the whole affair was fraud, sea an
imal was seen which had all the ap-
pearance Of a gigantic serpent.
And the idea of fraud in such mat.
ters is not nearly so reasonable as
many seem to imagine. Travellers
are sometimes said to tell marvellous
stories ;but it is noteworthy fact that
in nine cases out Of ten the marvellous
stories of travellers have been con-
firmed. Men ridiculed the tale brought
back by those who had sailed far to
the south, that the sun there moves
from right to left, Instead of from left
to right, as you face his midday place !;
but we know that those travellers told
the truth. The first account of the gi.
rafe was laughed to scorn, and it was
satisfactorily proved that no such
creature could possibly exist. The
gorilla would have been geered out of
existenee but for the fortunate arrival
of skeleton of his at an early stage
of our acquaintance with that pre-
possessing cousin of ours. Moustrous
cutie fish were thought to be mon
strous lies, till the Alecton, in 1861,
came upon one and captured its tail,
whose weight of forty pounds led nat
uralists to estim1 tie the entire weight
ofthe creature at four thousand pounds,
or nearly a couple of tons. In 1878,
again, two fishermen encountered a
gigantic cutie in Conception Bay,
Newfoundland, whose arms were about
thirty-five feet in length (the fisher
men cut off a piece from one arm
twenty FIVE feet long), while its body
was estimated at sixty feet in length
and Eve feet in diameter-so that the
devil.fs of Victor Hugo's famous
story was mere baby cutie by com
parison with the Newfoundland mon,
ster. The mermaid, has been satsfac.
torily identified with the manatte, OF
woman fsh," as the Portuguese call
it, which assumes, says Captain Seer
esBy, "such positions that the human
appearance is very closely initiated
AS for stories of sea-serpents, natur-
alists have been far less disposed to be
incredulous than the general public
| DR.. Andrew Wilson, for instance, af.
ter speaking Of the recorded Observa-
tions in much such terms as | have
used above, says: "We may then
affirm safely that there are many veri,
fed pieces of evidence on record OF
strange marine forms having been mel
with, which evidences judged accord
ing to ordinary and commOn-seDst
rules, go to prove that certain hither
to undescribed marine organisms dc
certainly exist in the ea-depths." AS
to the support which natural history
can give to the above proposition
biologists can but admit" he pro
ceeds, "the correctness Of the observa
ton. Certain organisms, and especi
ally those OF marine kind &c. 9, Ger
tain whales, are known to be Of ex
ceedingly rare occurrence. Our knowl
edge of marine reptilia is confessedly
very small aud, best of all, there il
no counter objection or feasible argu
ment which the naturalist can offe
by way of denying the above PROPOSE
tion. He would be forced to admi
the existence of purely marine gener
al Of snakes which possess compressed
! tails, adapted for swimming, and 9th
er noints of organization admittedlv