The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-09-02
THE SEA-SERPENT LEGEND.
SAILORS GENERALLY MANIFEST A
DISBELIEF IN THEIR EXISTENCE.
Plenty of Sea snakes, But the Limit
of Their Size Is six Feet.
From The Tondcn Star
From The London Star.

| From The London Star.
To the curious in such matters II must
be intensely interesting to mole how Wig
orous even in these latter days and in the
most prominent centers of civilization. is
| the craving after one of the most ancient
Of all the worlds myths An immense
volume might be written upon the persist
ence Of the sea-serpent legend. beginning
away back in the twilight Of history and
carried right down into this present year
| OF grace. And such a mountain of aDDar-
| entity unmpeachable evidence might be
| collected in favor of the existence of sucn
| monster or monsters that the most skep-
| teal Of mankind, being unp0ssessed of any
! personal experience Of the matter might
Wen be excused for giving in their ale
| stance to the belief in sea serpents, even
| though they were represent q s hugely in
| credible as the Acknowledgements speci-
| men portrayed in The Brahmic account Of
| The universal deluge.
! But IL viii be found that although. OF
! course, all the reports Of sea serpents haV-
! ing been seen are received from seafarers,
| seamen, as a class do not believe in the
| existence of any such creature. Moreover
| if those reports be submitted to careful
| Investigation, il viii Invariably be found
| that there are SO many elements Of doubt
| attaching to the description of The mon
stcrs seen that by-and-by the only clear
thing remaining about such yarns win he
! that something has been seen under Ger
| tain abnormal conditions which has been
| hastily pronounced scrpenilne in character
| Afterward. with the natural tendency to
embellish a story which all narrators are
| prone to, definite details have been added
| until some hidoous worm, worthy 20 take
its pace among The Nightmares of the
elder slime" has been evolved.
In the course Of my waDderingS in little
| frequented parts Of the watery worl1 l
| have come in contact with many queer
fish, so queer, in fact, that l feel bound to
make every excuse for those who. having
been brought in contact with such strange
shapes for The first time, have brought
home hair-raising stories about sea SER
| pants, aye! and have taken atiidavis as to
the truth Of their reports TOO. But IL must
be said, also that many Of these yarns
leave their concOcters without excuse, for
| ID should at once have been evident to a
seaman that the mons er viewed was moth
ing more serpentne like than a rorauai,
one of the long, slender whales that are
! found on the coasts Of nearly every coun-
try in the world. The latest story from
Campbeltown bears all the marks of be-
ing built up out OF a rorqual, its "mgsalP'
fins having doubtless sprung up mush-
room like under the eye of the observer.
| Or. more likely still, il may have been a
basking shark, of which many specimens
have been seen in British waters twenty
feet Tong. a length that would most easily
and naturally lend Itself to triple expan-
SIGN.
Undoubtedly the basis of the majority
of sea serpent stories is the gigantic cut
tlefsh observations of which have been
handed down to US from the remotesi
times, although, strange to say within the
last century even scientific men found II
easier to accept sea serpent fables as true
than accurate details about huge cutie
fish. on June A. 1896, I published, in Ma
ure an account of a conflict between q
sperm whale and an immense cuttlehsh
being moved thereto by reading transia-
ton of O paper read by the Prince oi
Monaco before the Academic des Sciences
at Paris on his discovery Of fragments o.
a huge cuttlefish in the eiecta of a sperm
Whale which he saw killed off Terciera
And / then stated that such a sight would
abundantly justify any number of sea ser
| pent yarns, with waving names, glazing
eyes. sail-like fins, in facial the usual ap
pendages. My sober account drew tortf
from the veteran DR.. Andrew Wilson the
remark in the Illustrated London New:
of July H. 1896 that l had finally settled
the sea serpent question. The good pro
fessor was oversauguine. Popular mythl
dent die as easily as that. Perhaps in this
unitarian and unbelievlng age 1t is just as
well they shouldn't. And TO the majority
of people the sea, vast mysterious, un
known that It Is, is the sole remaining pre-
serve of the huge, the eerle and The mon
strous left us. Undoubtedly this Is so, anf
If it could be proved beyond possibility OF
| doubt tomorrow that no such reptile as g
sea serpent ever existed the marvels Of
the deep-sea fauna would still remain.
Not but what | consider that the gigantic
| cuttlefsh is even more marvellous and awe
inspiring than any imaginary sea serpe Mt
, | At the natural history museum small
specir1en about three feet long 0enacle'
, and ain may be seen. Go and look at 1t
ana imagine It increased to twenty-five
times its present size, and say then wheth
or you think that the mind of man eVel
conceived anything more calculated u
make the hair of your fish stand IN
Sea snakes there are. Of course, plenty
of them. but the utmost limit of their siz'
is six feet in length. They are so CLOSELY
alike to the land serpents that there is con
siderable difficulty IN distinguishing then
anart and except that there are a few
wetl-marked differences, one would be in
ellned to think that they were land snaket
taking a swim, especially as they are neVe
saen far from shore In tropical seas, too
during long Gains there are great mum
: Der of large serpeutne shapes that rise u
{ the surface Of the stagnant waters; slug
alsb Shiny, indefinite things that seen
bred out of The general decomposition
! around them But these have no solidlty
they are mere piasma, and any attempt t
! secure them only results in their meltinl
= away The fancy naturally incines to tn
z idea of unthinkable monsters inhabitinl
e the ADVISES of ocean, an idea splendid.
worked out by Kip,lng In one OF his sto
ries but from what we know OF the con
e ditions of pressure, etc, a those vas
S denths. It is impossible to conceive Of an
e NE inhabiting them. And what Is eve
r more comforting to those who go dow
I to the sea in ships at any rate is IN
( knowledge that If those tremendous depth
a we're the abode Of horde OF awful mon
= sters they would certainly not be able I
n live under the radically altered condition
existing al the surface of the sea-