The Arizona sentinel., 1886-10-09

tens to make fun of the statement: This is we'll enough, for the time is not so hallowed and gracious as to preclude the possibility of unveracious allega- tions touching so indefinite personal ity as that of the marine creature re- ferred to. But while the sardonic smile may be evoked, and the lip of scorn be protruded, by the ordinary sensational narrations of the summer solstice, the sea serpent is entitled to the benefit of the doubt which hinges upon the ante cedent probability of his existence. to say nothing of the evidence for his real ity long since adduced by many compe- tent and trustworthy observers.
 Some thirty years ago the captain, officers and nearly the whole watch on deck of H. M. s. Dedalus united in de- claring that they had seen the sea ser bent, and the account they gave of the creature was such as any naturalist would admit to be that of a wholly possible marine reptile. In fact it may be said that the differences of science decidedly favor the sea serpent as bona fide creature. There is not one valid objection to him, and there are many reasons why his existence should be expected. The conservatism of hu- man nature is the real cause of the gen eral disinclination to extend cordial welcome to the prolonged stranger, and there is some danger always that thls conservatism may degenerate into stu pidity. Culture. indeed, has never been protection against the chronic temptation to gauge the bounds of nature by individual know ledge. Thus when Du Chaillu first announcing that interesting but not handsome beast the gorilla, naturalists of reputation were swift to accuse the traveller of practicing an imposition up- on the world, and declared that there was no such animal; and when Victor Hugo described the pieuvre or octopus, it was gravely asserted that he was romancing unwarrantably, though very much larger pieuvres have since been caught off the coast of Newfoundland.
 As to the sea serpent, there is nothing in any way incredible about him. We know, thanks to pal9ontology, that huge reptiles existed both on land and in the ocean, in distant ages, and it is by no means impossible that some of the species inhabiting the ocean depths may have lived on to the present day, for they would encounter where there were none of the changes of fenvironment which forced out of existence the early saurians that inhabited the littoral waters and the coasts. In fact the con- ditions which favor the survival of the great cetaceans must be equally kind to marine ophidians, and a sea serpent, it may almost be said, is therefore necessary to the balance of things. The retiring habits of the crea- ture, on the one hand, and the apparent absence in him of the commercial ele- ment, which procures so hard a life for the whales, combine to maintain about him that veil of mystery which encour- ages the skeptical to deny him a local habitation and name. But the weight of evidence in his behalf, added to the scientific reasons for not rejecting the legend of him, will probably in time overcome the inertia of conventional habits of thinking, and the sea serpent will be accepted, not merely as pos sibility, but as solid and sinuous fact. N F. Tribune.