Nov. 1 8, 1880] 



NATURE 



55 



feet in length/ while its great double-fanged but knife-edged 

 molars show that it was carnivorous ; and as we are not so far 

 removed from the period of the Alabama Tertiaries as to render 

 it improbable that members of what must once have been a great 

 order of carnivorous cetacea, totally distinct from the orders of 

 cetacea hitherto known as living, may still survive, I have braved 

 the ridicule attaching to this subject so far as to invite attention 

 to it. 



The second of the two figures in the Graphic shows the long- 

 necked animal to possess the cetacean tail, and its head there 

 seems to have been turned from the observer, so that the under- 

 side of it only is presented. The first figure shows that the 

 whale had been seized on its flank by the powerful bite of its 

 ao-o-ressor, and that to escape from this it had thrown itself out of 

 the water. Having succeeded in this object the second figure 

 shows the aggressor rearing its head and neck out of the water to 

 discover the direction which its prey had taken, in order that it 

 mifht follow it up ; and so far from the charge of curious draw- 

 ing made by the editor of the Graphic being justified, the repre- 

 sentation of the whale can be at once recognised as fairly correct ; 

 while that of the tail of the unknown animal (which probably 

 prompted this charge), so far from being curious, forms an im- 

 portant piece of evidence as showing the animal in question to be 

 cetacean. Searles V. Wood, Jun. 



Martlesham, near Woodbridge, September 27 



P.S. — Since sending to you the above I have again seen my 

 relative, and find that the cut in the Graphic of July 19, 1879, 



is not that of the instance observed from the steamer in which 

 she came home, Mhich was the City of Washinglon, but of a 

 separate instance which occurred to another ship. I have not 

 been able yet to procure the Graphic containing the figure of the 

 animal seen from the City of IVashinglon, but she tells me that 

 it was pasted up in the saloon, and represented only the head 

 and long neck of the animal, which was raised to a great height 

 out of the water, and near to the ship ; and hud been drawn for 

 the Graphic by a larly passenger immediately after the occur- 

 rence. These repeated and independent notices of the same 

 long-necked animal are, however, the more confirmatory of its 

 existence, 



I find that Prof. Owen, in his article on Paljeontology in the 

 EiiLyclopicdia Britannica (vol. xvii. p. 166), in giving a descrip- 

 tion of Zeii^lodon ccloidcs, says that " the skull is very long and 

 nairow and the nostril single," that Dr. Harlan obtained the 

 teeth on which, correcting Harlan's reptilian reference of them, 

 he founded the order Zcuglodoutia, from the Miocene of Malta ; 

 and that the teeth discovered by Grateloup in the Miocene beds 

 of the Gironde and Herault, and ascribed by liim also to a 

 reptile under tlie name of Squahdon, are those of a smaller 

 species of Zciiglodon. The remains of Squalodoit, along with 

 those of the shark wii h huge teeth, Carcharodon nicgalodon, and 

 of numerous cetaceans assigned to orders all still living, and of 

 which some, such as Delphiinis, belong to living genera, occur 

 in the " Sables inftrieurs " of Antwerp; which, though long 

 called Miocene, are by M. Vandenbroeck regarded as older 

 Pliocene, and as the base of that series of deposits of which the 



middle and upper divisions are respectively represented by the 

 Coralline and Red Crags of England ; and with these "Sables 

 inferieurs" the so-called Miocene of Malta, in which Zeuglodan is 

 associated with Carcharodon, is probably coeval. Dr. Gibbes 

 (Jour. Acad. A'ai. Sc, 2d. ser., vol. i. p. 143), figures and 

 describes teeth of the Antwerp specif s of Carcharodon from 

 both the Eocene of South Carolina and the Miocene of Alabama 

 These various references bring the Zcnglodonts, with their 

 Carcharodon associates, down to a late geological period, during 

 which they co-existed with Delphinian prey; and of this prey 

 the whale in the woodcut (which looks like a Grampus) seems 

 an example. 



It is most likely that Bishop Pontoppidan, a copy of the 

 English (1755) edition of whose work I possess, concocted his two 

 figures (one of which is that of a huge snake undulating on the 

 waves, and the other that of a serpent-like animal with pectoral 

 fiappers or fins, resting almost on the surface of the sea, wi hhead 

 and tail erect out of the w ater like the letter (J , and spouting w ater 

 or steam from its mouth in a single column), from accounts given 

 him by Norwegian seamen, some of whom had seen the animal 

 in the position in which it was observed from the Dicdalus, and 

 others in that in which it is represented in the cut as seen from 

 the Kiushiu-maru ; for in the long narrative which he gives of 

 the descriptions received from observers at numerous times, 

 some of these agree with the one, and some with the other, 



■ He obferves in tlie third edition of his " M.->nu 

 (1851), p. 208, that he visited the spot where 

 ength belonging to Zeuglodon had been dug up. 



though both of the Bishop's figures represent only preposterous 

 conceptions of his own. 



[The animal seen from the Osborne, and figured in the Graphic 

 of lune 30, 1S77, as the " Sea-serpent," is quite a different thing 

 from the one in question, and may have been a manatee.'] 



Temperature of the Breath 

 The interesting observation made by Dr. Ditdgeon (Nature, 

 vol. xxii. p. 241, and vol. xxiii. p. 10) to the effect that breathing 

 on the bulb of a thermometer through several folds of flannel or 

 silk raises the temperature of the instrument several degrees 

 above that of the mouth and body, is easily verified. There is 

 no doubt about the accuracy of the observation ; but the explana- 

 tion of it offered by Dr. Dudgeon is not satisfactory. He 

 supposes that the heightened temperature is due to the ex-, ired 

 air being hotter — not cooler, as is usually believed — than the 

 mouth alid body. A simple experiment sufficed to show that 

 this view was untenable. A clinical thermometer was inserted 

 in the cavity of the mouth, and the stem gra-ped by the teeth in 

 such a way that the bulb lay free in the oral cavity. Inspiration 

 was carried on by the nostrils, and ex| iration was eflected by 

 gently forcing the breath between the loosely-closed lips and the 

 stem of the instrument. The bulb was thus placed in the centre 

 of the stream of expired air and kept free from contact with the 

 tongue and cheeks. Experimenting in tliis way, I found, at the 

 end^of five, and also of ten, minutes that the thermometer marked 

 97-2°— the temperature under the tongue at the time being 98-4°. 



