RULERS OF THE ANCIENT SEAS 57 



to the best authenticated reports of the sea- 

 serpent. Among other possibilities it has been 

 suggested that some animal believed to be ex- 

 tinct had really lived over to the present day. 

 Now there are a few waifs, spared from the 

 wrecks of ancient faunas, stranded on the 

 shores of the present, such as the Australian 

 Ceratodus and the Gar Pikes of North Amer- 

 ica, and these and all other creatures that could 

 be mustered in were used as proofs to sustain 

 this theory. If, it was said, these animals 

 have been spared, why not others? If a fish 

 of such ancient lineage as the Gar Pike is so 

 common as to be a nuisance, why may there 

 not be a few Plesiosaurs or a Mosasaur some- 

 where in the depths of the ocean ? The argu- 

 ment was a good one, the more that we may 

 "suppose" almost anything, but it must be 

 said that no trace of any of these creatures has 

 so far been found outside of the strata in which 

 they have long been known to occur, and all 

 the probabilities are opposed to this theory. 

 Still, if some of these creatures had been spared, 

 they might well have passed for sea-serpents, 

 even though Zeuglodon, the one most like a 



