S12 THE VARIOUS ACCOUNTS, [1883. | 
Then he says: “Many other accounts have been published of the 
appearance of serpent-like sea-monsters, but I have only space for 
two or three more of the most remarkable of them”. Truly, an 
easy way to get rid of them! One of these two or three more re- 
markable reports is the fight between the whale and the sea-serpent 
(n°. 144) of which he proposes several explanations (1 beg to refer 
the readers to that account), ending with the words: “it must be 
left for further elucidation”. The sea-serpent of the City of Baltimore 
(n°. 149) was misunderstood by him. He compares the splash of 
the water, caused by the animal’s dropping its neck like a log of 
wood into it, with the caudal fins of a calamary (just imagine!) 
but ends: “but, as one with a bull-dog expression of eye-brow , 
visible at 500 yards distance, does not come within my ken, I 
will not claim it as much.” And of the animal of the Osborne 
he says: 
“Jt seems to me that this description cannot be explained as 
applicable to any one animal yet known. The ridge of dorsal fins 
might, possibly, as was suggested by Mr. Frank Buckianp, belong 
to four basking sharks, swimming in line, in close order; but 
the combination of them with long flippers, and turtle-like mode 
of swimming, forms a zoological enigma which I am unable to solve.” 
Nevertheless, m answering the question: “To which of the re- 
cognized class of created beings can this huge rover of the ocean 
be referred?” he says: “I reply: Tio the Cephalopoda” (i. e. cala- 
maries). Such a contradiction I do not understand. 
And notwithstanding his cherished great-calamary-hypothesis, and 
after having said some words about Mr. Nrwman’s Plesiosaurus 
theory and Mr. Wrizrson’s ideas of the extraordinary development 
of snakes, he ends his work with the following conclusions: 
“I arrive, then, at the following conclusions: Ist. That, without — 
straining resemblances, or casting a doubt upon narratives not 
proved to be erroneous, the various appearances of the supposed 
“Great Sea-Serpent’’ may now be nearly all accounted for by the 
forms and habits of known animals; especially if we admit, as 
proposed by Dr. Andrew Wilson, that some of them, including 
the marine snakes, may, like the cuttles, attain to an extraordi- 
nary size.” 
“2nd. That to assume that naturalists have perfect cognizance 
of every existing marine animal of large size, would be quite un- 
warrantable. It appears to me more than probable that many 
marine animals, unknown to science, and some of them of gigantic 
