CHAPTER XIV 

 SEA-SERPENTS 



AVERY simple way of dealing with the subject of 

 this chapter, and one entirely in accordance with 

 my own feelings upon the matter, would be that 

 said to be adopted by the Irish student who was set 

 to write an essay upon snakes in Ireland, and did so in 

 the sentence, ' There are no snakes in Ireland.' But 

 whatever my ideas in this connexion may be, I find 

 it impossible to ignore or set aside contemptuously 

 the vast amount of literature upon the subject, much 

 of it doubtless written by very well-informed and 

 entirely honest persons, who were only anxious to 

 disseminate the truth concerning sea-serpents. 



It is hardly possible for any sensible person at all 

 acquainted with the fauna of the sea and literature 

 generally to approach the subject of Sea-serpents 

 with an open mind. It is like the matter of ghosts, 

 one that is mixed up so much with pure superstition, 

 personal bias, human weakness of mind and credulity, 

 that it seems impossible to get a reasonable account 

 at all. And this, setting aside entirely the intentionally 

 mendacious literature on the subject, stuff written 

 falsely from a diseased or riotous imagination with no 

 other object in view than that of creating a sensation, 

 not seldom with the full knowledge that there is always 

 an immense number of otherwise sane and sensible 



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