316 THE VARIOUS ACCOUNTS, [N°. 132. ] 
sketch has not been published. How many interesting drawings 
have in this way got into the paper-basket! 
In 1860 Mr. P. H. Gossz published his Romance of Natural 
History, First Series. The last chapter of this volume is entitled 
“the Great Unknown” and is entirely devoted to the Great Sea- 
Serpent. His manner of teaching Natural History to his readers 
was, as the able writer says himself, a poetical one. “In my many 
year’s wandering through the wide field of Natura] History, I have 
always felt towards it something of a poet's heart, though desti- 
tute of a poet’s genius’. I can recommend every zoologist and 
botanist to read his work in his leasure hours; I have read it 
with great interest and pleasure, increasmg my knowledge, wan- 
dering with the writer from north to south and from east to west, 
from one pole to the other and from continents to the greatest 
depths of the ocean ! 
The sea-serpent’s question was such a favourite one of this roman- 
tic naturalist, that m his preface he wrote the following about it: 
“If I may venture to poimt out one subject on which I have 
bestowed more than usual pains, and which I myself regard with 
more than common interest, it is that of the last chapter in this 
volume. An amount of evidence is adduced for the existence of 
the sub-mythic monster popularly known as “the sea-serpent”, 
such as has never been brought together before, and such as 
ought almost to set doubt at rest. But the cloudy uncertainty 
which has invested the very being of this creature; its home on 
the lone ocean; the fitful way in which it is seen and lost in its 
vast solitudes; its dimensions, vaguely gigantic; its dragon-like 
form; and the possibility of its association with beings considered 
to be lost m an obsolete antiquity; — all these are attributes which 
render it peculiarly precious to a romantic naturalist. I hope the sta- 
tisticians will forgive me if they cannot see it with my spectacles.” 
His chapter on the sea-serpent will also be read with great 
interest. But there are several facts which he seems not to have 
been able to explain. In describing the animal, seen near Cape 
Ann, 1817, he writes: “xo appearance of mane was seen by any’, 
without giving any explanation; he has evidently underlined these 
words to draw the readers’ attention to this evidence, which is so 
quite contradictory to others, mentioned before and afterwards. On 
the same page (p. 284) when repeating the expression of one of 
