438 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED. 



exist in the American Seas, as he had found numerous 

 instances in which the fossil forms of the Old World were 

 represented by living types in the New." 



On this point, Mr. Newman records, in the Zoologist 

 (p. 2356), an actual testimony which he considers, "in all 

 respects, the most interesting natural-history fact of the 

 present century." He writes : 



" Captain the Hon. George Hope states that when in H.M.S. Fly, 

 in the Gulf of California, the sea being perfectly calm and transparent, 

 he saw at the bottom a large marine animal with the head and general 

 figure of the alligator, except that the neck was much longer, and that 

 instead of legs the creature had four large flappers, somewhat like 

 those of turtles, the anterior pair being larger than the posterior ; the 

 creature was distinctly visible, and all its movements could be observed 

 with ease ; it appeared to be pursuing its prey at the bottom of the sea ; 

 its movements were somewhat serpentine, and an appearance of 

 annulations, or ring-like divisions of the body, was distinctly percep- 

 tible. Captain Hope made this relation in company, and as a matter 

 of conversation. When I heard it from the gentleman to whom it was 

 narrated, I enquired whether Captain Hope was acquainted with those 

 remarkable fossil animals Ichthyosauri and Plesiosauri, the supposed 

 forms of which so nearly correspond with what he describes as having 

 seen alive, and I cannot find that he had heard of them ; the alligator 

 being the only animal he mentioned as bearing a partial similarity to 

 the creature in question." 



Unfortunately, the estimated dimensions of this creature 

 are not given. 



That negative evidence alone is an unsafe basis for argu- 

 ment against the existence of unknown animals, the follow- 

 ing illustrations will show : 



During the deep-sea dredgings of H.M.S. Lightning, 

 Porcupine, and Challenger, many new species of mollusca, 

 and others which had been supposed to have been extinct 

 ever since the chalk epoch, were brought to light ; and by 

 the deep-sea trawlings of the last-mentioned ship, there have 



