THE GREAT UNKNOWN. 



of his profession. Of the fate of the others then 

 on deck I am ignorant ; so the story rests on my 

 own unsupported word, but I pledge that word 

 to its correctness. Professor Owen's supposition, 

 that the animal seen by the officers of the l)a- 

 dalus was a gigantic seal, I believe to be incor- 

 rect, because we saw this apparently similar 

 creature in its whole length, with the exception 

 of a small portion of the tail, which was under 

 water ; and, by comparing its length with that of 

 the Royal Saxon, (about six hundred feet,) when 

 exactly alongside in passing, we calculated it to 

 be in that, as well as in its other dimensions, 

 greater than the animal described by Captain 

 M'Quhae. Should the foregoing account be of any 

 interest to you, it is at your service ; it is an old 

 story, but a true one. I am not quite sure of 

 our latitude and longitude at the time, nor do I 

 exactly remember the date, but it was about the 

 end of July.— R. Davidson, Superintending Sur- 

 geon, Nagpore Subsidiary Force, Kamptee, 3d 

 January, 184!)/' 



In the year 1852, the testimony of British of- 

 ficers was again given to the existence of an 

 enormous marine animal of serpent form. The 

 descriptions, however, shew great discrepancy 

 with that of the creature seen from the D&dalus, 

 and cannot be considered confirmatory of the 

 former account, otherwise than as proving that 

 immense unrecognised creatures of elongate form 

 roam the ocean. 



Two distinct statements of the incident were 

 published, which I cite from the Zoologist (p. 

 3750) ; but one of them had already appeared in 

 The Times. 



Lieutenant- Colonel Thomas Steele, of the Cold- 

 stream Guards, thus writes: — 

 315 



