THE SEA-SERPENTS OF SCIENCE. 105 



Act for the more effectual abolition of oaths and affirmations, taken and 

 made in various departments of the State, and to substitute declarations 

 in lieu thereof, and for the more entire suppression of voluntary and 

 extra-judicial oaths and affidavits, and to make other provisions for the 

 abolition of unnecessary oaths.' Severally declared and subscribed at 

 Liverpool aforesaid the tenth day of January, one thousand eight hundred 

 and seventy-seven. 



GEORGE DREVAR, Master. 



WILLIAM LEWARX, Str^ard. 



HORATIO THOMPSON, Chief Officer. 



J. H. LAX DELLS, Second Officer. 



OWEX BAKER. 



Severally declared and subscribed at Liverpool aforesaid, 

 the tenth day of January, one thousand eight hundred and 

 seventy-seven, before T. S. Raffles, J.P. for Liverpool." 



The second and final piece of evidence I shall cite, is that 

 obtained from an article entitled " Strange Sea Monsters," 

 by Mr. R. A. Proctor, which appeared in the Echo of the 

 1 5th January, 1877. In this communication, Mr. Proctor 

 makes reference to some of the views which I have pro- 

 mulgated on this subject, and by way of illustration, gives 

 the following interesting particulars of a recent sea-serpent 

 narrative : 



" Soon after the British steamship Nestor anchored at 

 Shanghai, last October, John K. Webster, the captain, and 

 James Anderson, the ship's surgeon, appeared before Mr. 

 Donald Spence, Acting Law Secretary in the British Supreme 

 Court, and made affidavit to the following effect : 



On September n, at 10.30 a.m., fifteen miles north-west of North 

 Sand Lighthouse, in the Malacca Straits, the weather being fine and 

 the sea smooth, the captain saw an object which had been pointed out 

 by the third officer as ' a shoal ! ' Surprised at finding a shoal in such 

 a well-known track, I watched the object, and found that it was in 

 motion, keeping up the same speed with the ship, and retaining about 

 the same distance as first seen. The shape of the creature I would 

 compare to that of a gigantic frog. The head, of a pale yellowish 

 colour, was about twenty feet in length, and six feet of the crown were 

 above the water. I tried in vain to make out the eyes and mouth ; the 

 mouth may, however, have been below water. The head was im- 

 mediately connected with the body, without any indication of a neck. 



