CHAPTER VIII. 



Pretended Fossil Sea Serpent, or Zeuglodon, from Alabama. Recent 

 Appearance of a Sea Serpent in Gulf of St. Lawrence. In Norway, in 

 1845. Near Cape Ann, Massachusetts, 1817. American Descriptions. 

 Conjectures as to Nature of the Animal. Sea Snake stranded in the 

 Orkneys proved to be a Shark. Dr. Barclay s Memoir. Sir Everard 

 Home s Opinion. Sea Serpent of Hebrides, 1808. Reasons for con 

 cluding that Pontopiddan s Sea Snake was a basking Shark. Capt. 

 M Quhae s Sea Serpent. 



DURING the first part of my stay in Boston, October, 1845, 

 we one day saw the walls in the principal streets covered with 

 placards, in which the words SEA SERPENT ALIVE figured con 

 spicuously. On approaching near enough to read the smaller 

 type of this advertisement, I found that Mr. Koch was about to 

 exhibit to the Bostonians the fossil skeleton of &quot; that colossal and 

 terrible reptile the sea serpent, which, ivhen alive, measured 

 thirty feet in circumference.&quot; The public were also informed 

 that this hydrarchos, or water king, was the leviathan of the 

 Book of Job, chapter xli. I shall have occasion in the sequel, 

 when describing rny expedition in Alabama to the exact site 

 from whence these fossil remains were disinterred by Mr. Koch, 

 of showing that they belong to the zeuglodon, first made out by 

 Mr. Owen to be an extinct cetacean of truly vast dimensions, 

 and which I ascertained to be referable geologically to the 

 Eocene period. 



In the opinion of the best comparative anatomists, there is no 

 reason to believe that this fossil whale bore any resemblance in 

 form, when alive, to a snake, although the bones of the vertebral 

 column, having been made to form a continuous series, more than 

 100 feet in length, by the union of vertebrae derived from more 

 than one individual, were ingeniously arranged by Mr. Koch in 

 a serpentine form, so as to convey the impression that motion 

 was produced by vertical flexures of the body. 



At the very time when I had every day to give an answer to 



