THE GREAT UNKNOWN. 



the deeper immersed fins and tail of a rapidly- 

 moving gigantic seal raising its head above the 

 water,' as Professor Owen imagines, in quest of 

 its lost iceberg. 



"The creative powers of the human mind may 

 be very limited. On this occasion they were not 

 called into requisition; my purpose and desire 

 being, throughout, to furnish eminent naturalists, 

 such as the learned Professor, with accurate facts, 

 and not with exaggerated representations, nor 

 with what could by any possibility proceed from 

 optical illusion ; and I beg to assure him that old 

 Pontoppidan's having clothed his sea-serpent with 

 a mane could not have suggested the idea of 

 ornamenting the creature seen from the Dwdalua 

 with a similar appendage, for the simple reason 

 that I had never seen his account, or even heard 

 of his sea-serpent, until my arrival in London. 

 Some other solution must therefore be found for 

 the very remarkable coincidence between us in 

 that particular, in order to unravel the mystery. 



"Finally, I deny the existence of excitement, or 

 the possibility of optical illusion. I adhere to the 

 statements, as to form, colour, and dimensions, 

 contained in my official report to the Admiralty; 

 and I leave them as data whereupon the learned 

 and scientific may exercise the 'pleasures of imagi- 

 nation' until some more fortunate opportunity 

 shall occur of making a closer acquaintance with 

 the 'great unknown —in the present instance as- 

 suredly no ghost. "* 



A few months later, the folio wing letter appeared 

 in the Bombay Bi-mouthly Times for January, 

 1849. It is a very valuable testimony: — 



"I see, in your paper of the 30th December, a 

 paragraph in which a doubt is expressed of the 



* The Times, November 21, 1848. 

 313 



