CKAP. VIII.] CAPT. M QUHAE S SEA SERPENT. 121 



calm weather, when the serpent swam by, as if a steamer at full 

 speed was passing near the shore. 



I conclude, therefore, that the sea serpent of North America 

 and the German Ocean is a shark, probably the Squalus maxl- 

 mus, a species which seems, from the measurements taken in 

 Orkney in 1808, to attain sometimes, when old, a much larger 

 size than had ever been previously imagined. It may be objected 

 that this opinion is directly opposed to a great body of evidence 

 which has been accumulating for nearly a century, derived partly 

 from experienced sea-faring men, and partly from observers on the 

 land, some of whom were of the educated class. I answer that 

 most of them caught glimpses only of the creature when in rapid 

 motion and in its own element, four-fifths or more of the body 

 being submerged ; and when, at length, the whole carcass of a 

 monster mistaken for a sea snake was stranded, touched, and 

 measured, and parts of it sent to the ablest anatomists and zo 

 ologists in Scotland, we narrowly escaped having transmitted to 

 us, without power of refutation, a tale as marvelous and fabulous 

 concerning its form and nature, as was ever charged against Pon- 

 toppidan by the most skeptical of his critics.^ 



* After the above was written, a letter appeared in the English news 

 papers, by Captain M Quhae, R.N., of the Daedalus frigate, dated Oct. 7, 

 1848, giving an account of &quot;the sea serpent&quot; seen by him, Aug. 6, 1848, 

 lat. 24 44 S. between the Cape and St. Helena, about 300 miles distant 

 from the western coast of Africa ; the length estimated at sixty feet, head 

 held four feet above water, with something like the mane of a horse on its 

 back which was straight and inflexible. Professor Owen has declared his 

 opinion, after seeing the drawing of the animal, sent to the Admiralty by 

 Captain M Quhae, &quot; that it may have been the largest of the seal tribe, the 

 sea-elephant of the southern whalers, Phoca proboscidea, which sometimes 

 attains a length of thirty feet, and individuals of which have been known to 

 have been floated by icebergs toward the Cape. This species has coarse 

 hair on the upper part of its inflexible trunk which might appear like a mane. 

 The chief impelling force would be the deeply immersed terminal fins and 

 tail, which would create a long eddy, readily mistakable for an indefinite 

 prolongation of the body.&quot; 



Mr. Owen s conjecture appears to me very probable ; but, before I heard 

 \t, I had made up my mind that the creature seen by Captain M Quhae dif 

 fered from the sea serpent of the Norwegians and New Epglanders, from 

 whose description it varies materially, especially in the absence, when at full 

 speed, of apparent undulations, or dorsal prominences. 

 VOL. I. F 



