[1827. | REPORTS AND PAPERS. Mpa | 
that vague reports had been spread abroad with regard to this 
enormous animal long ere any just foundation was afforded for 
them, and indeed before we had heard of any who professed to 
have seen it. This may have very far conduced to produce that 
scepticism which now is perfectly unwarrantable. We are so accus- 
tomed, whenever the subject is introduced in conversation , to couple 
it with the preposterous fables of the Kraken, that it would be 
extremely difficult to break down the barriers against belief which 
prejudice has so long assisted to support. The accounts of the most 
credible witnesses have thus been rejected, although, “to make 
assurance doubtly sure’, the generality of them have been taken 
upon oath.” 
“So many wonderful discoveries, both in the arts and Sciences, 
have been made within the last century, that it is astonishing 
how the existence of the sea-serpent has been supposed either so 
marvellous or impossible. Time has satisfactorily proved the vera- 
city of Bruce, and we must leave it to time to do the same office 
with regard to the beholders of this “wonder of the deep.” Is 
this monster more disproportionate to the extent of the sea than 
the elephant to that of the land? Or, it may be asked, has it a 
solid bulk, (even according to late most extravagant accounts), 
nearly approaching in magnitude to that of the whale? Geology 
has been infinitely more fortunate than zoology in many respects; 
theories only partially sustained have been received; and while the 
recent discoveries of the Plesiosaurus and Megalosaurus have made 
demands upon our powers of credence far greater than the serpent, 
the descriptions of the latter animal have received very little trust, 
and even much ridicule and contempt. In general, however, it 
must be confessed, that people do not object to the extraordinary 
proportions of such a creature, so much as to what they consider 
the want of respectable and satisfactory evidence. We trust to ad- 
vance, in the sequel, such additional evidence to that already 
presented, and of such respectability, as to confirm entirely the 
truth of the existence of such an animal, — an animal concerning 
which so many contradictory opinions have been bazarded as to its 
more immediate nature and structure; and which, from the mys- 
tery in which it has hitherto been wrapped, must be interesting 
to the most casual admirer of nature: — which must be interesting 
even from the element in which it lives; so vast, so unexplored 
in its inmost recesses. We can have so little information with regard 
to an animal which has so mighty an habitation, that it acquires 
