414 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED. 



murocnoid fishes, and the known sea-snake (Hydrophis), swims by 

 undulatory movements of the body. . . . 



" The fossil skull and vertebras which were exhibited by Mr. Koch 

 in New York and Boston as those of the great sea serpent, and which 

 are now in Berlin, belonged to different individuals of a species which 

 I had previously proved to be an extinct whale, a determination which 

 has subsequently been confirmed by Professors Miiller and Agassiz. 

 Mr. Dixon, of Worthing, has discovered many fossil vertebrae in the 

 Eocene tertiary clay at Bracklesham, which belong to a large species 

 of an extinct genus of serpent (Palceophis], founded on similar vertebras 

 from the same formation in the Isle of Sheppy. The largest of these 

 ancient British snakes was twenty feet in length, but there is no 

 evidence that they were marine. The sea-saurians of the secondary 

 periods of geology have been replaced in the tertiary and actual seas 

 by marine mammals. No remains of Cetacea have been found in lias 

 or oolite, and no remains of Plesiosaur, or Ichthyosaur, or any other 

 secondary reptile, have been found in Eocene or later tertiary deposits, 

 or recent, on the actual sea-shores ; and that the old air-breathing 

 saurians floated when they died has been shown in the ' Geological 

 Transactions' (vol. v., Second Series, p. 512). The inference that 

 may reasonably be drawn from no recent carcass or fragment of such 

 having ever been discovered is strengthened by the corresponding 

 absence of any trace of their remains in the tertiary beds. 



" Now, 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 

 carcass of such reptiles should have ever been discovered in a recent 

 or unfossilized 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." 



The reasoning of the most eminent of living physiolo- 

 gists of course had its influence on those who could best 

 appreciate it ; but, as it went against the current of popular 



