108 SEA SERPENT IN GULF OF ST. LAWRENCE. [CHAP. VIII. 



the question whether I really believed the great fossil skeleton 

 from Alabama to be that of the sea serpent formerly seen on the 

 coast near Boston, I received news of the reappearance of the 

 same serpent, in a letter from my friend Mr. J. W. Dawson, of 

 Pictou, in Nova Scotia. This geologist, with whom I explored 

 Nova Scotia in 1842, said he was collecting evidence for me of 

 the appearance, in the month of August, 1845, at Merigomish, 

 in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, of a marine monster, about 100 

 feet long, seen by two intelligent observers, nearly aground in 

 calm water, within 200 feet of the beach, where it remained in 

 sight about half an hour, and then got off with difficulty. One 

 of the witnesses went up a bank in order to look down upon it. 

 They said it sometimes raised its head (which resembled that of 

 a seal) partially out of the water. Along its back were a num 

 ber of humps or protuberances, which, in the opinion of the ob 

 server on the beach, were true humps, while the other thought 

 they were produced by vertical flexures of the body. Between 

 the head and the first protuberance there was a straight part of 

 the back of considerable length, and this part was generally 

 above water. The color appeared black, and the skin had a 

 rough appearance. The animal was seen to bend its body 

 almost into a circle, and again to unbend it with rapidity. It 

 was slender in proportion to its length. After it had disappeared 

 in deep water, its wake was visible for some time. There were 

 no indications of paddles seen. Some other persons who saw it 

 compared the creature to a long string of fishing-net buoys 

 moving rapidly about. In the course of the summer, the fisher 

 men on the eastern shore of Prince Edward s Island, in the Gulf 

 of St. Lawrence, had been terrified by this sea monster, and the 

 year before, October, 1844, a similar creature swam slowly past 

 the pier at Arisaig, near the east end of Nova Scotia, and, there 

 being only a slight breeze at the time, was attentively observed 

 by Mr. Barry, a millwright of Pictou, who told Mr. Dawson he 

 was within 120 feet of it, and estimated its length at sixty feet, 

 and the thickness of its body at three feet. It had humps on 

 the back, which seemed too small and close together to be bends 

 of the body. 



