The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1899-12-19

time. have brought home hair-raislnR
stories about the sea serpents-aye,
and have taken affidavits as 70 the
truth OF their reports, too. But IL must
be said also that many of these yarns
leave their concoctors without excuse.
for 1t should at once have been evident
to n seaman that the monster viewed
was nothing more serpent-like than a
rorqual, one of the long, slender whales
that are found on the coasts OF nearly
every country in the world. The latest
story from Campbelltown bears all the
marks of being built up out of a ror-
qual, its "lugsall" fins having doubtless
sprung up mushroomllke under the eve
or the observer. Or, more likely still.
1t may have been a basking shark, of
which many specimens have been seen
In British waters twenty feet long
length that would easily and natur-
ally lend itself to triple expansion.
Undoubtedly the basis of the majority
Of sea-serpent stories is the gigantic
cuttle-fsh. observations of which have
been handed down to us from the re-
motest times, although strange to say.
within the last century even scientific
men found 1t easier to accept seaser-
pent fables as true than accurate de-
tails about huge cuttleflsh. On June
a. 1896, I published in Nature an ac-
count of q conflict between a sperm
whale and an immense cuttlefsh, being
moved thereto by reading a translation
OF paper read by the prince OF
Monaco before the Academic des
Sciences at Paris on his discovery of
fragments of a huge cuttlefsh in the
ejecta of a sperm whale which he saw
killed off Terceira. And l then stated
that such a sight would abundantly
justify any number of sea-serpent
yarns, with waving names, glaring
eyes, sail-like fins-in fact, all the
usual appendages. My sober account
drew forth from the veteran DR.. An
drew Wilson the remark, in the Illus
trated London News of July II. 1896,
that I had finally settled the sea-ser-
pent question. The good professor was
oversanguine. Popular myths don't
die as easily as that. Perhaps in this
unitarian and unbelieving age 1t is
just as well they shouldn't. And to
majority of people the sea-vast. mys-
terious unknown that it isis the sole
remaining preserve of the huge the
eerie, and the monstrous left us. I'm
doubtedly this is So and, If it could be
proved beyond possibility Of doubt to-
morrow that no such reptile as a sea
serpent ever existed, the marvels of
the deep-sea fauna would still remain.
Not but what I consider that the gil
gantc cuttlefish is even more marvel
Gus and awe inspiring than any imag-
mary sea serpent At the Natural His
tory museum a small specimen about
three feet long UentaCles and alD may
be seen. Go and look at it, and mag
Inc it increased to 25 times its present
size, and say then whether you think
that the mind of man ever conceived
anything more calculated to make the
hair of your flesh stand up.
sea snakes there are, of course plenty
of them, but the utmost limit of their
size is six feet in length. They are
so closely alike to the land serpents
that there is considerable difficulty in
distinguishing them apart and except
that there are a few well-marked diff
ferences, one would be inclined to think
they were land snakes taking a swim.
especially as they are never seen far
from shore. In tropical seas too. during
long Gains, there are a great number
OF large serpentine shapes that rise to
the surface of the stagnant waters
sluggish, Shiny, indefinite things that
seem bred out Of the general decompo-
sition around them. But these have
no solidity; they are mere plasma;
and any attempt to secure them only
results in their melting away. The
fancy naturally inclines to the idea of
monsters inhabiting the
abyssss Of ocean-an idea splendidly
worked out by Kipling in one of his
stories-but from what we know of the
conditions of pressure, etc, at those
vast depths it is impossible to con-
ceive of any life inhabiting them. And
what is even more comforting, to those
who go down to to the sea in ships, at
any rate, is the knowledge that if those
tremendous depths were the abode of n
horde Of awful monsters. they would
certainly not be able to live under the
radically altered conditions existing at
the surface Of the sea.