THE GREAT SEA-SERPENT

An historical and critical treatise

Anthonie C. Oudemans

Preface 9

I. LITERATURE ON THE SUBJECT 11

II. ATTEMPTS TO DISCREDIT THE SEA-SERPENT,CHEATS AND HOAXES 21

III. WOULD-BE SEA-SERPENTS 57

IV. THE VARIOUS ACCOUNTS AND REPORTS CONCERNING OBSERVATIONS OF SEA-SERPENTS, chronologically arranged and thoroughly discussed; and criticisms of the papers written about the subject 87

V. THE VARIOUS EXPLANATIONS HITHERTO GIVEN 285

VI. CONCLUSION 359

A. – Fables, Fictions, Exaggerations and Errors 365

B. – Facts 367

1. EXTERNAL CHARACTERS 367 a. Dimensions 367 b. Form 372 c. Skin 375

2. INTERNAL OR ANATOMICAL CHARACTERS 376

3. COLOURS, INDIVIDUAL VARIATIONS 376

4. SEXUAL DIFFERENCES, MANE 377

5. PHYSIOLOGICAL CHARACTERS 379 a. Nutritory functions 379

1. Eating, food 379

2. Breathing 379

3. Excretion 380 b. Functions of the senses 380

1. Feeling 380

2. Taste 380

3. Smell 380

4. Hearing 380

5. Sight 381 c. Functions of the muscular system 381 l. Relative mobility of organs. 381

2. Motions 382

3. Voice 387 d. Generation, growth 387

6. PSYCHICAL CHARACTERS 387 a. Not taking notice of objects 387 b. Taking notice of objects 387 c. Curiosity, probably mixed with suspicion 388 d. Suspicion 388 e. Harmlessness 388 f. Timidity 388 g. Fearlessness 388 h. Fear 389 i. Fright 389 j. Fury 389 k. Toughness 389 l. Playsomeness 389 m. Sensibility of fine weather 390

7. ENEMIES 390

8. REPOSE, SLEEP, DEATH 390

9. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION 391

10. NOMENCLATURE 398

C. – Conclusions 399

1. COMPARISON WITH ALLIED ANIMALS 399 a. Dimensions 404 b. Form 405 c. Skin 405 d. Colours, Individual Variatons 405 e. Sexual differences, Mane 406 f. Food 406 g. Breathing 407 h. Excretion 407 i. Feeling 407 j. Smell, Hearing, Sight 408 k. Relative mobility of organs 408 l. Motion 408 m. Generation 408 n. Taking notice of objects 409

2. ITS RANK IN THE SYSTEM OF NATURE 410

APPENDIX 419

LAST WORD 433

Post Scriptum

“It is always unsafe to deny positively any phenomena that may be wholly or in part inexplicable; and hence I am content to believe that one day the question will be satisfactorily solved.”

Voyagers and sportsmen conversant with photography are requested to take the instantaneous photograph of the animal: this alone will convince zoologists, while all their reports and pencildrawings will be received with a shrug of the shoulders. As these animals are very shy, it is not advisable to approach them with a steamboat.

The only manner to kill one instantly will be by means of explosive balls, or by harpoons loaden with nitro-glycerine; but as it most probably will sink, when dead, like most of the Pinnipeds, the harpooning of it will probably be more successful. If an individual is killed, take the following measurements:

1. Length of the head from nose-tip to occiput.

2. Length of the neck from occiput to shoulders.

3. Length of the trunk from shoulders to tail-root.

4. Length of the tail from tail-root to end.

5. Distance from shoulders to fore-flappers.

6. Distance from shoulders to thickest part of the body.

7. Length of a foreflapper.

8. Length of a hind-flapper.

9. Circumference of the head.

10. Circumference of the neck.

11. Circumference of the thickest part of the body.

12. Circumference of the tail-root.

Give a description of the animal, especially an accurate one of the head, the fore-flappers and the hind-flappers, and, if possible, make a sketch.

If but barely possible, preserve the whole skeleton, and the whole skin, but if this is utterly impracticable, keep the cleaned skull, the bones of one of the fore-flappers and those of one of the hind-flappers, four or five vertebrae of different parts of the backbone, neck, and tail; and preserve the skin of the head, and a ribbon of about a foot breadth along the whole back of the neck, the trunk, and the tail.

In all ages meteoric stones have fallen on the earth. Many of them were found by persons who were in search of them; they preserved them; and thus collections were made in private rarity cabinets and in natural history cabinets. Many learned persons believed in meteoric stones, but many others were sceptical, and their attacks were so violent, and their mockery about stones that fell from the atmosphere, or were thrown by the men in the Moon to the inhabitants of the Earth, so sharp as to shake the belief of many a collector, and the happy possessor, fearing the mockery of the socalled learned men, concealed his treasures, or threw them away on the dust-hill, or in a ditch.

But at last there appeared a firm believer in aerolites, named CHLADNI, who took the trouble to collect all accounts concerning observations of meteoric stones from the ancient times up to the nineteenth century. He showed 1. The immense number of facts. 2. The strikingly concurrent testimony in all the accounts independent of one another.

In the year 1829 he published his work “Ueber Feuermeteore” (i. e. on Meteoric Stones) in Vienna, and from that moment the eyes of unbelievers were opened. Meteoric stones were again found, and were proved to be quite different from terrestrial stones. From that moment the belief in the existence of meteoric stones was fixed for ever.

The author of the present Volume has been at the pains to collect all accounts concerning observations of Sea-Serpents. His work has the same purpose as CHLADNI’s had in 1829. It is his sincere hope that it may meet with the same success.