' THE GREAT SEA serpent: 255 



animal seen were sent to the Admiralty; and the Right 

 Hon. R. A. Cross, then Secretary of State for the Home 

 Department, requested the opinion of Mr. Frank Buckland 

 on the matter, the result being a full account given to 

 the readers of Land and Water, to which Mr. F. Buckland 

 was so popular a contributor. In addition to Owen's valued 

 opinion, the public were favoured with able papers by Mr. 

 A. D. Bartlett, of the Zoological Gardens, Captain David 

 Gray, of the whaling ship Eclipse, Mr. Henry Lee, and 

 Frank Buckland himself. 



From the discrepancies in the records of the four officers, 

 and the sketches of nothing in nature which accompanied 

 those records, not one of those able writers ventured an 

 assertion as to what the strange animal could possibly be. 

 The captain — Commander Pearson — 'saw the fish through 

 a telescope;' a 'seal-shaped head of immense size, large 

 flappers, and part of a huge body.' 



Lieutenant Haynes saw *a ridge of fins above the surface 

 of the water, extending about thirty feet, and varying from 

 five to six feet in height.' Through the telescope he saw 

 ' a head, two flappers, and about thirty feet of an animal's 

 shoulder ; the shoulder was about fifteen feet across.' The 

 animal propelled itself by its two ' fins.' 



Mr. Douglas M. Forsyth saw *a huge monster, having 

 a head about fifteen to twenty feet in length.' The part 

 of the body not in the water 'was certainly not under 

 forty-five or fifty feet in length.' 



Mr. Moore, the engineer, observed 'an uneven ridge of 

 what appeared to be the fins of a fish above the surface 

 of the water, varying in height, and as near as he could 



