WHAT IS THE SEA-SERPEXT ? 187 



water, and in rather a raised position, disappearing occasionally beneath a wave for a very 

 brief interval, and not apparently for the purposes of respiration. It was going at the 

 rate of perhaps from twelve to fourteen miles an hour, and when nearest was perhaps 

 100 yards distant. In fact, it gave one quite the idea of a targe snake or eel." Lieutenant 

 Drummond's account is the more worthy of regard, as it was derived from his journal, 

 and so gives the exact impressions of the hour, while Captain M'Quhse's description was 

 written from memory after his arrival in England. 



These statements caused much discussion at the time. It was suggested by Mr. J. D. 

 Morriss Stirling, a gentleman long living in Norway, and also by a writer in the Time* 

 of November 2, 1848, under the signature of "F. G. S./' that the monster had an affinity with 

 the great fossil reptiles known to geologists as the Enaliosauria, and particularly adduced 

 the genus Plesiosaurus, or gigantic lizard, with a serpent-like neck. This is also the opinion 

 of Professor Agassiz, as given in the report of his lectures in Philadelphia, in 1849, and 

 reaffirmed in his " Geological Researches. " 



A master in science, Professor Richard Owen, now appeared upon the field, and in 

 a most able article in the Times, November 11, 1848, gave his verdict against the serpentine 

 character of the animal, and pronounced it to have been, in his judgment, a seal. He argued 

 this partly from the description of its appearance, and partly from the fact that no remains of 

 any dead marine serpent had ever been found. He says : " On weighing the question 

 whether creatures meriting the name of ' great sea serpent ' do exist, or whether any of the 

 gigantic marine saurians of the secondary deposits may have continued to live up to the 

 present time, it seems to me less probable that no part of the carcase of such reptiles should 

 have ever been discovered in a recent or unfossilised state, than that men should have been 

 deceived by a cursory view of a partly submerged and rapidly moving animal, which might 

 only be strange to themselves. In other words, I regard the negative evidence from the 

 utter absence of any of the recent remains of great sea serpents, Krakens, or Enaliosauria, 

 as stronger against their actual existence than the positive statements which have 

 hitherto weighed with the public mind in favour of their existence. A larger body of 

 evidence from eye-witnesses might be got together in proof of ghosts than of the sea 

 serpent." 



However, Captain M'Quha? gallantly returned to the charge, and combated the idea 

 that he had mistaken one of the P/toca species for a snake; and he was strongly corroborated 

 by Mr. R. Davidson, Superintending Surgeon, Nagpore Subsidiary Force, in a letter from 

 Kamptee, published in the Bombay Bi-monthly Times, for January, 1849. This gentleman 

 says that an animal, " of which no more generally correct description could be given than 

 that by Captain M'Quhse," passed within thirty-five yards of the ship Royal Saxon while 

 he and its commander, Captain Petrie, were standing on the poop, when they were returning 

 to India in 1829. 



Again, a letter was printed in the Zoologist for 1852, communicated by Captain Steele, 

 9th Lancers, to his brother, Lieutenant-Colonel Steele of the Coldstream Guards, stating 

 that while on his way to India in the Bartram he and every one on board saw " the head 

 and neck of an enormous snake." This was corroborated in a letter from one of the 

 officers of the ship, who says : " His head appeared to be about sixteen feet above the^ 



