362 THE GREAT UNKNOWN. 



On this point, however, an actual testimony exists, to 

 which I cannot but attach a very great value. Mr 

 Edward Newman, in the same volume of the Zoologist 

 that I have just cited, (p. 2356,) records what he con- 

 siders " in all respects the most interesting natural-history 

 fact of the present century." It is as follows : 



" Captain the Hon. George Hope states, that, when in 

 H.M.S. Fly, in the Gulf of California, the sea being per- 

 fectly calm and transparent, he saw at the bottom a 

 large marine animal, with the head and general figure of 

 an 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 were distinctly perceptible. Captain Hope 

 made this relation in company, and as a matter of con- 

 versation. When I heard it from the gentleman to whom 

 it was. narrated, I inquired whether Captain Hope was 



* Mr Marshall, in his interesting " Four Years in Burmah," just pub- 

 lished, mentions his having seen an " alligator " forty-jive feet in length, 

 swin>ming in the Irawaddy, with the head and nearly half of the body 

 out of the water. He is confident that it was travelling at the rate of at 

 least thirty miles an hour, and this against a very strong tide I What 

 could this have been ? Surely no Crocodilian ; for the great Gavial, the 

 largest of known Saurians, is little more than one-third of this length. 

 MM. Dumeril and Bibron give the dimensions of the largest on record 

 as 5 met. 40 centim., or about 17j feet. 



