The morning times., 1895-09-22

LORE OF The SEA SERPENT
Is it a Real Monster or a
Fake of Ages?
WHAT THE SCIENTISTS THINK
Mariners Yarns of the Fab
nlous Creature Which
Haunts the Deep.
WHAT THE SCIENTISTS THINK

At several points along the coast of New
York and New England the annual visit of
| the sea serpent has been reported within
the past thirty days. Some of these ac-
counts have been circumstantially given and
apparently in good faith. But for no very
obvious reason the oftener the sea serpent
is sighted and spoken at Sea and reported
on shore the more incredulous people seem
to grow concerning the creatures exist
eDce. The supposed specimen of the great
ocean wonder that was washed up on the
beach at BIackweli's Island, New York har-
bor, few weeks ago, was only the romance
of a few hours. 1t proved to be nothing
more than an ordinary python, which had
died on shipboard at sea. and, having been
first skinned, was thrown overheard. Here
we have probable clue to the very general
skepticism concerning the sea serpent.
People inevitably tend to discredit the ex-
isteDce OF creature, nospecinicn OF which.
in all the centuries that it has been talked
about, has ever been brought to land.
Is there a sea-serpent, or is the creature
as mythical as the jabberwock? Scores of
witnesses have testified to its existence.
Sea captains and fishermen in large num-
bers have recorded their observation of it
in their logs and reported it to the news
papers. Some of them have seen 1t with
their naked eyes and Others through their
glasses daTkly-and some are suspected of
having seen it in their boots. Books have
been written about it and are TO be found
at all the leading libraries. Descriptions of
it have been numerously given with much
nInuteness OF detail, and they disagree
with each other in many essential par
ticUlars.
DESCRIPTIONS FAIL TO ARGEE.
1t has been reported as about twice the
length of city block, and again as not
more than thirty feet long. It's head has
been set down by some eye-witncsses as
very like that OF a horse, and by others as
more like that of lion. Artists who have
attempted to make picture of it have
generally agreed to give il head like that
on the great dragons of China-and every
body knows that there were never any
great dragons.in China nor anywhere else.
Still the sea-serpent is a well-attested fact
according to all the rules of circunistaDtial
evidence. 1t has been seen, rd, snielt,
aud felt by many credible persons againss
whose yeracity nothing more can be alleged
than that they were out sailing or fishing
at the time and were not total afjstainers.
Four out of the five huna senses are thus
Inassed in the mountainous testimony to the
mammoth snake OF the ocean 4 host of
human eyes have seen Il curl and twist on
the surface of the shining summer sea; a
great array OF human ears have heard 1t
snap its 1ointed coils Gnash its three or four
rows of teeth, aud hiss with vim that set
the sea foaming all around it. Numberless
noses have detected peculiar odOr akin to
birthstone and suggestive of sheol as it
reared its crested head anywhere from ten
TO twenty feet above the level OF the sea.
Many an affriGhted sailor man has felt his
craft vibrate under the mighty thrashing OF
its tail or the angry arching OF its fearful
spine. There is only one human sense by
which the great salt serpent has not been
tested--the sense of taste. In all the cen
turtles nobody has ever caught one OF them;
| therefore, it remains untested by the ordeal
of cookery, aud is of unknown value as
food product.
SOME EARLY MONSTERS.
Hence, too, there is no Specimen OF its
skeleton in the Smiths oman Institution
or the British Museum. And for the same
reason, we suppose, the standard works
on natural history treat it as mythical
member of the marine family.
There is certainly an unbroken line of
witnesses to the existence of the sea-ser-
! pent, dating from the days of Pliny and
the early Morse writers down to the present
time Natralists have variously endeavored
to explain away the multitude of reports
made by credible witnesses of this weird
denizen of the deep. Very early in the CEN
tury a supposed sea-serpent cast up on one
of the Orkney Islands was scientifically
inquired into and found to be nothing more
than a huge basking shark Hence it was
inferred that large numbers of other re-
ported sea-serpents were only basil king
sharks. In the early part of this century
so many sea-serpents were reported Ia have
been seen along the coast of this country
that the strage creatures, whatever they
really were, were commonly spoken of by
the European learned societies which dis
cussed them as 1.-The American sea-ser-
pent."
There were so many appearances of the
! uncertain monster about that time, several
of them vouched for by persons of eminence
and undoubted veracity, that the naturalist
Gosse collated the descriptions of it and
summed them up as follows: 1, general
form that of a serpent; 2. length, averaging
60 feet; 8, head flattened, eye generally
not mentioned, some distinctly stating that
| it was not seen; 4, neck, IL to i6 inches in
| diameter; 3, appendages on the head neck
| or back-accounts here vary; 6, color dark.
| lighter below; Z, swims at the surface, head
| thrown forward and slightly elevated; 8,
| progression steady and uniform, body
straight, but capable of being bent; 8, water
spouting from it; 10, in shape like a nun
J buoy" .
- Blood Disease
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