28 ATTEMPTS TO DISCREDIT THE SEA-SERPENT. 
Boston Frigate, and of Marshall Prince and family, and of Mr. 
Cabot, can be set aside -— although we have no doubt that there 
have been on this subject both error and imposition; and we are 
far from believing that every thing that has been called a sea-— 
serpent has really been such.” 
Now in the whole dissertation there is not one single proof of - 
the non-existence of the sea-serpent. Mr. Mircuiin gathered some 
hoazes, which no doubt greatly amused his audience, but his 
statements are sadly wanting in correctness. He says, that the sea- 
serpent jirst haunted the coast of Massachusetts, while if he in 
October 1828, had taken the trouble to look up the literature on 
the subject, he would have found that the sea-serpent had already 
appeared on the coasts of Norway, in the Northern Atlantic, in 
Davis’ Straits, in the Northern Pacific near Behring’s Isle, and all 
along the Eastern coasts of the United States. The Linnaean Society, 
he further asserts “published a book on the subject, with the 
figure of the enormous reptile under the name of Scolophis’. This 
is also untrue, for the Society only figured an individual of a sick 
and ill-formed Coluber constrictor, the so-called Black Snake, having 
only the length of about one yard! The “mutilated specimen of a 
snake’ which was brought to him in alcoholic spirit, was the 
same figured by the Linnaean Society; and where Mr. Mitcarn. 
says that he is convinced that the snake was a common native of 
the land, “apparently a Coluber’, he expresses an opinion which 
the Society already printed in their little book. Consequently he 
cannot claim priority in this matter. And finally, where he says 
that the story of the active young fellow with his sloop, called 
“the sea-serpent” is published in the aforesaid book of the Linnaean 
Society, he has told his audience and his readers what is commonly 
called “a falsehood”, for in the whole book there is not one “formal 
and solemn account” in which there is question of “white and 
black colours” which “were variegated”, of a “tail” which “lashed” 
the water, and of a motion of “six knots an hour, which made all 
white before him”. 
I may safely express here my opinion that the whole paper of 
Mr. Mircuitt is an unscientific, deceptive dissertation, unworthy 
of notice, and that the way in which he ridiculed the endeavours 
of the Committee was unfair. 
