1835.] Miscellaneous. 63 



officers and crew had been employed in the whale fishery. It was of the size of 

 a whale, but differing from that animal in shape ; spotted like a leopard, in a 

 very beautiful manner : it came close under the stern of the ship, during a calm, 

 and we had a magnificent opportunity for viewing it : it had a very large dorsal 

 fin, which it moved about with great rapidity when made angry in consequence 

 of the large stones that we threw down upon it rashly ; for it possessed 

 sufficient strength to have broken the rudder and stove in the stern of the 

 ship. Several large fish (seemingly Dog-fish), about a cubit in length and 

 upwards, were gamboling about the monster, entering its mouth at 

 pleasure and returning to the water again. The following will give you 

 some idea of its shape. The mouth very large, dorsal fin black or dark- 

 brown, tail also ; body covered with brown spots like a leopard, head lizard- 

 shaped. May it not be the Plesiosaurus, or a species of that fish known to have 

 existed formerly in the waters of the ocean ? Having given you this statement, 

 it is proper that I should give you the names of those who were also eye-witnesses 

 of the existence of this extraordinary animal. They are as follows : 



1. Captain Tingate, at that time commanding the ship " Cashmere Mer- 

 chant," now commanding the " Competitor." 



2. Mr. Smellie, Mr. Pike, and Mr. Landers, officers of the vessel. 

 The above gentlemen will corroborate my statement : Captain Tingate and Mr. 



Smellie were old sailors, and had never before seen the fish, or one resembling it. 

 There were also several European seamen on board, not one of whom had ever 

 seen it before. 



[All we can venture to say on this authenticated account is, that the monster 

 described is not a Plesiosaurus as Lieutenant Foley suggests; as that reptile has 

 no " dorsal fin." What it may be, we must leave others more competent to de- 

 cide, but the unusual nature of the notice should by no means prevent the inser- 

 tion of a description supported by such unequivocal evidence. — Ed.] 



3. Suspension of the Survey of the Brahmaputra River. 

 For the last four years, an accurate trigonometrical survey of the Brahmaputra , 

 has been in progress, to connect the map of this river from GoalpaVa, where it 

 terminated in Captain Wilcox's Survey of the Assam Valley, (see the 138th 

 sheet of the " Indian Atlas," or the lithographed map in the 17th volume of 

 Researches,) with the surveys of the Ganges, the Sunderbans, and finally with the 

 grand meridional arc. Captain Wilcox and Lieutenant Ommanney, Engineers, 

 completed the measurement of the Jenai, which now forms the main stream of the 

 Brahmaputra, from Jumalpur to its confluence with the Ganges at Jdfirganj, 

 and the latter officer had in 1830 since been engaged in tracing the line of 

 the river from goalpara round the difficult country at the root of the Kasia 

 mountains, to within 30 miles of Dacca, when a sudden order of Government 

 lately directs the whole work to be suspended, and in fact, all that has been 

 done, to be rendered comparatively useless for want of the connecting link 

 which it would not have taken three months to complete I Geographers at home 

 will be at a loss, as we ourselves are, to account for a measure apparently so im- 

 politic, and we cannot help thinking, that a word of explanation to the proper 

 authorities would still be in time to remedy the mistake. 



