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Prof. VecJts ohsevvaiions or ^he Sea Serpent. 8i) 



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states that ia conversation with the Rev. Mr. Cummin's,* the lat- 



ter gentleman observed that " this animal liad been seen occasion- 



"ally in Feuobscot Bay wilhiu thirty years j supposed to be 



< ' ^^ above sixty feet in length, and of the size of a Sloop's mast. 



" That it had been seen by the inhabitants of Fox and Lon 

 ^^ islands, aiul one of them a Mr. Crocket^ liad seen two of Iheiu 

 ^^ together about the year 178/. 



These are llie earliest notices 1 can find of this animal on our 

 shores^ and their truth is rendered indubitable by the evidence 

 lately brought together by the committee of the Linnaian Society^ 

 of men of fair and unblemished character in Gloucester j of Capt, 

 Toppan and two of his people^ of the Schooner Laura of Ports- 

 mouthy and Capt. Elkanah Finney of Plymouth. 



The account of it by Lonson Nash Esq, Justice of the Peace 

 in Gloucester, from his own observation, is perfectly free from 



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prejudice and as clear and satisfactory as can be expected of an 

 ol3Ject at the distance of two hundred and fifty yards. 



Mr. Nash saw it with a perspective glass whose field of view, 

 at that distance he found about forty five feet in diameter, and the 

 length of the visible part of the animal, was greater than could be 

 included in that field of view. 



I do not perceive by the accounts, that any person has seen its 

 wliole length. Mr. Nash estimates it at seventy feet at least, and 



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thinks it may be even an hundred, and its diameter equal to that 



of a half-barrel, about l6 or 17 inches. Its colour appeared to 



* A letter from this gentleman was forwarded to the Academy about the year 

 1806, oiving a particular account of the animal, as he saw it, at a small distance ; 

 but this letter is lost or mislaid, as are the testimouj, on oath, of Capt, Crabtree 

 ;ind a letter from the late Capt. George Little, 



