CHAKACTER OF THE NOEWAY COAST. 865 



Now, a whale sinks like lead as soon as the blubber is 

 removed ; the surface-fat alone causes a whale to float. 

 But we have no warrant for assuming that the Plesiosaur 

 was encased in a thick blanket of blubber ; no geologist 

 has suo'oested any such thino- and the lono- neck forbids 

 it ; and if not, doubtless it would sink, and not float, 

 when dead. Therefore the stranding of such a carcase, 

 or the washing ashore of such a skeleton, would most 

 probably be an extremely rare occurrence, even if the 

 animal were as abundant as the sperm-whale; but, on 

 the supposition that the species itself is almost extinct, 

 we ought not to expect such an incident, perhaps, in a 

 thousand years. If we add to this the recollection, 

 how small a portion of the border of the ocean is 

 habitually view&cl by persons able to discriminate be- 

 tween the vertebrae of an Enaliosaur and those of a 

 Cetacean, we shall not, I think, attach great importance 

 to this objection. 



The only region of the globe, in which the unknown 

 monster is reputed to be in any sense common, is the 

 coast of Norway. Now this, it is true, is fortunately 

 within the ken of civilised and scientific man ; and, con- 

 fessedly, no enormous ophidian or saurian carcases have 

 ever been recognised on that shore. But the shore of 

 Norway is, perhaps, the least favourable in the world for 

 such a jetsam. Such a thing as a sand or shingle beach 

 is scarcely known ; the coast is almost exclusively what 

 is called iron-bound ; the borders of the deejDly indented 

 fjords rise abruptly out of the sea, so that there is gene- 



