The Portland daily press., 1894-10-29
SEA MONSTERS.
A Few of the Best Substantiated Stories
Concerning Their Existence.

1t is humorously alleged that the sea
serpent has been laughed out of exis-
tence but, in truth. says the London
Standard it is the evidence has been
suppressed by mockery. Men of standing
refuse to tell what they have seen when
conscious that their statements will be
made a jest and treated as downright
falsehoods. But one argument is adj
vanced against the reality of sea SER
pents, and that is not worthy the name.
Directors ask why they have not been
heard of before this century. AS mat
ter of fact they are recorded continually
from the earliest time, but the unthink-
ing do not apply those endless tales of
monsters in antiquity to creature ac-
tually asserted in their own day. There
is another of the same sort, the great
kraken, only less ridiculed because no
witness has published report OF it in
"the papers," Pontoppidan's account of
the kraken was thought as diverting by
those who read it as ever was story of
the sea serpent. But we know now to
certainty that the giant squid exists;
W. haFO LILO Ph0eOS1opd1 WOlSAO anu
measurement, and anatomical descrip-
ion., Observation-Disclosures and New. York
ers possess the very thing itself. The
time is not distant probably when the
story of the sea serpent will be confirmed
with like precision.
1t is strange indeed that Pontoppidan's
account of the kraken should have been
unsupported for SO many years, seeing
how fast proofs have accumulated since
the earliest of them came to hand. In
less some natural causes have set those
beasts ION the move" lately, many
thousands of fishermen dwelling on the
seashore must always have been able to
give testimony beyond dispute. Forty
Years ago a krak en- was stranded Oh the
Danish coast. and the scientific world
heard of it from that time year by year
month by month almost of late-the aw-
full creatures have been noted. In 1861
the French war steamship Affection pur-
sued one for three hours, fighting all
the time; killed it at length. but lost
the carcass in drawing it aboard. The
size was roughly estimated at eighty feet
from tip to tip of he arms.
This is quite credible. The Rev. Mr..
Harvey measured an arm which three
Newfoundland fishermen secured as a
trophy in 1873. after hand-to-hand bat
tie with the monster. Six feet of it had
been cut off in the struggle. ten feet re-
manned upon the body, as the fishermen
computed; and the intermediate portion
was nineteen feet long. One measuring
So feet was actually landed soon after
wards, and it now lies i 4 the museum at
st. Johns. The New York Aquarium had
Zine example taken in 1877. Its body
is nine feet six inches long and seven
feet in circumference, the arms stretch
sixty feet from tip to tip. Bigger speci-
mems are recorded largest of all that
taken in Logic Bay, and anchored to the
shore by grapnel-a single arm meas
ured not less than As feet. But we need
not go to distant lands. In 1875 some
Connemara fishermen saw one of these
giants asleep and assailed it, though the
only weapon they had aboard was
knife. Two hours the fight lasted, un-
til the men, keeping out uf reach, had
cut off its limbs one by one. The tenta-
Giles proved to be thirty feet long each
the eyes fifteen inches in diameter the
beak" four inches long. 1t was sick or
wounded before the discovery, otherwise
the tale would probably have been un-
told
With these astounding facts before us,
it seems strange to the unprecedented that
the sea serpent should still be an object
of ridicule. The kraken might we'll be
dlsbelleved while there was no evidence
OF its existence. But every one who sails
not steams-in small vessel around
the shore of any tropic country must
see hundreds of snakes. In the Brazilian
Seas they have been caught thirty feet
long. That some objects taken for sea
serpents should have proved to be shoals
of porpoise, drifts of weed, or strings of
aquatic birds in flight is beside the
question. The narratives of Capt.
McQuhae ana Henderson, DR.. Davidson,
the passengers of the Durham, the offic-
ers of the royal yacht Osborne, and
such old stories, are too well known for
repetition. But the very curious Incl
dent reported by all hands aboard the
Pauline has not been so commonly no.
ticed. 1t was in the Indian Ocean July
1875. Three large sperm whales came in
sight, one of which was struggling in
the grip of serpent. The coils appeared
TO be eight or nine feet in diameter both
head and tail were visible. The struggle
lasted about fifteen minutes, when the |
snake sank with its victim.
But we must not dwell on the sea SER
pent Capt. Hon. George Hope, command
ing her Majesty's ship Fly in the Gulf of
California, 1854, saw an extraordinary
monster. The sea was still, the water