SIS THE GREAT UNKNOWN. 



was visible to the naked eye for five minutes, and with a 

 glass for i^erhaps fifteen more. The weather was dark 

 and squally at the time, with sea running." * 



The pictorial sketch alluded to in Captain M'Quhae's 

 report, as well as one representing the animal in another 

 aspect, was published in the Illustrated London News, 

 of October 28, 184?8, " under the supervision of Captain 

 M'Quhse, and with his apj^roval of the authenticity of 

 the details as to position and form." These drawings 

 will be criticised presently. 



As I have already said, a good deal of popular curiosity 

 and interest was immediately awakened ; and the public 

 papers were for a while filled with strictures, objections, 

 suggestions, and confirmations. Among the last, Captain 

 Beechey, the eminent navigator, mentioned an extraor- 

 dinary appearance which had occurred to him during the 

 voyage of the Blossom, in the South Atlantic. " I took 

 it for the trunk of a large tree, and before I could get 

 my glass it had disappeared." 



Mr J. D. Morries Stirling, a gentleman long resident 

 in Norway, communicated to the Secretary to the 

 Admiralty important confirmatory evidence of the ex- 

 istence of the animal on the coasts of that country, 

 collected by a scientific body at Bergen, of which he was 

 one of the directors. In the course of this communica- 

 tion, the writer points out certain points of resemblance 

 borne by the Norwegian animal to the great fossil reiDtiles 

 known to geologists as the Enaliosaui^i : — " In several of 



* ZooJorjist, p. 2306. 



