THE SEA-SERPENTS OF SCIENCE. 99 



for variations in accounts arising from different modes of 

 expression and even from mental peculiarities in the 

 witnesses, there remains a solid body of testimony, which, 

 unless there is some special tendency to mendacity on the 

 part of persons who travel by sea, we are bound, by all the 

 rules of fair criticism and of evidence, to receive as testimony 

 of honest kind. As I have elsewhere observed, " There are 

 very many calmly and circumstantially related and duly 

 verified accounts of serpentine, or at any rate, of anomalous 

 marine forms, having been closely inspected by the crews 

 and passengers of vessels. Either, therefore, we must argue 

 that in every instance the senses of intelligent men and 

 women must have played them false, or we must simply 

 assume that they are describing what they have never seen. 

 The accounts in many instances so minutely describe the 

 appearance of such forms, inspected from a near stand- 

 point, that the possibility of their being mistaken for inani- 

 mate objects, as they might be if viewed from a distance, is 

 rendered entirely improbable. We may thus, then, affirm 

 firstly that there are many verified pieces of evidence on 

 record, of strange marine forms having been met with, 

 which evidences, judged according to ordinary and common- 

 sense rules, go to prove that certain hitherto undescribed 

 marine organisms do certainly exist in the sea-depths." 



The first issue I must therefore submit to the reader, as 

 representing one of a large and impartial jury, is, that the 

 mass of evidence accumulated on the sea-serpent question, 

 when weighed and tested, even in a prima fade manner, 

 plainly shuts us up to the belief that appearances, resembling 

 those produced by the presence in the sea of huge 

 serpentine forms, have been frequently noted by competent 

 and trustworthy observers. Unless we are to believe that 

 men and women have deliberately prevaricated, and that 

 without the slightest excuse or show of reason, we must 

 believe that they have witnessed marine appearances, cer- 

 tainly of unwonted and unusual kind. That "something" 

 has assuredly been seen, must be the verdict on this first 



