352 THE GREAT UNKNOWN. 



Jamaican Celestus occiduus, for instance) is not at all 

 unlike that represented ; it is full as vaulted, and as short, 

 but a little more pointed, and with a flatter facial angle. 

 On this point the Captain's assertion corrects the drawing; 

 for in reply to Professor Owen he distinctly asserts that 

 "the head was flat, and not a capacious vaulted cranium;" 

 and the description of Lieutenant Drummond, published 

 before any strictwes were made on the point, says, 

 " the head .... was long, pointed, and flattened at 

 the top, perhaps ten feet in length, the upper jaw ]3roject- 

 ing considerably." 



With regard to the " mane. " The great Phoca pro- 

 boscidea is the only seal which will bear comj)arison with 

 the Dcedalus animal in dimensions, reaching from twenty 

 to thirty feet. H. M. officers declare tliat upwards of 

 sixty feet of their animal were visible at the surface ; but 

 Mr Owen supposes, not improbably, that the disturbance 

 of the water produced by j^rogression induced an illusive 

 appearance of a portion of this length. But how much ? 

 Suppose all behind thirty feet, the extreme length of the 

 elephant seal. Then it is impossible the animal could 

 have been such a seal, for the following reason. The 

 fore paws of the seal are placed at about one-third of the 

 total length from the muzzle ; that is, in a seal of thirty 

 feet long, at ten feet behind the muzzle. But twenty feet 

 of the *' serpent" were projected from the water, and yet 

 no appearance of fins was seen. Lieutenant Drummond 

 judges the head to have been ten feet in length (with 

 which the lower figure, assuming sixty or sixty-five feet 



