THE GREAT UNKNOWN. 



ocean, though to be but rarely seen. A strong 

 conviction of its existence has always prevailed 

 among the inhabitants of Norway ; and the fjords 

 or deep inlets which indent the coast-line of that 

 mountainous country are the situations in which 

 it is reported to have been most frequently seen. 

 The coasts of New England, in the United States, 

 are also said to have been favoured with frequent 

 visits from tho august stranger during the present 

 century; and, even recently, reports by many 

 witnesses of unimpeachable character have been 

 published of its appearance in the midst of the 

 ocean, far from land, in various latitudes. 



Bishop Pontoppidan, who, about the middle of 

 the last century, wrote a natural history of Nor- 

 way, his native country, collected together a con- 

 siderable mass of testimony to the occasional 

 appearance of an immense serpentiform marine 

 animal off the shores of northern Europe before 

 that period. Among other evidence, he adduces 

 that of Captain de Ferry, of the Norwegian navy, 

 who saw the animal, when in a boat rowed by 

 eight men, near Molde, in August, 1747. The 

 declaration was confirmed by oath, taken before 

 a magistrate, by two of the crew. The animal 

 was described as of the general form of a serpent, 

 stretched on the surface in receding coils or undu- 

 lations, with the head, which resembled that of a 

 horse, elevated some two feet out of the water. 



The public papers of Norway, during the sum- 

 mer of 1846, were occupied with statements to 

 the following effect: — 



Many highly respectable persons, and of unim- 

 peached veracity, in the vicinity of Christiansand 

 and Molde [the reader will observe that it is the 

 same locality as that mentioned by Captain de 

 Ferry, a hundred years before], report that they 

 283 



