296 THE VARIOUS ACCOUNTS, [N°. 120.] 
on. I could not ascertain its exact length, but its back was about 
twenty feet if not more above water; and its head, as near as I 
2 
Fig. 31. — The sea-serpent as seen by an officer of H. M. 8S. Plumper. 
could judge, from six to eight. I had not time to make a closer 
observation, as the ship was going six knots through the water, 
her head E. half S., and wind S. S. E. The creature moved across 
our wake towards a merchant barque on our lee-quarter, and on 
the port tack. I was in hopes she would have seen it also. The 
officers and men who saw it, and who have served in parts of 
the world adjacent to whale and seal fisheries, and have seen them 
in the water, declare they have neither seen nor heard of any 
creature bearing the slightest resemblance to the one we saw. ‘There 
was something on its back that appeared like a mane, and, as it 
moved through the water, kept washing about, but before I could 
examine it more closely, it was too far astern. — I remain, yours 
very truly 
A Naval Officer.” 
Evidently the Naval Officer did not send the description of the 
appearance and the figure, before he was repeatedly requested by 
several gentlemen to do so. These gentlemen would not have been 
so pressing, if an appearance like that of the Daedalus had not 
happened very recently. How many written testimonies of the exist- 
ence of sea-serpents will not be found in log books and private 
journals of navigators! 
UZ. — 1849, February 18. — In the Zoologist of 1849 we 
read, p. 2459: 
