376 THE VARIOUS ACCOUNTS, | [ 1886. | 
and though he ends his article with the words: “It would thus 
appear that, while, with very few exceptions, all the so-called 
sea-serpents can be explained by reference to some well-known ani- 
mal or other natural object, there is still a residuum sufficient to 
prevent modern zoologists from denying the possibility that some 
such creature may after all exist”, he himself was evidently taken 
in by the different persons who explained the sea-serpent by refer- 
ence to the most impossible suppositions! He enumerates eight 
different explanations and seems fully to agree with them. It is 
evident that his only purpose was to satisfy the request of writing 
an article on the Sea-Serpent for an Encyclopedia. 
158. — 1886, August. — In the Graphic of September, 25, 
we read; | 
“The sea-serpent has now crossed the Atlantic, and has suddenly 
appeared near Kingston Point, on the Hudson. It was seen by 
two young men, who were rowing in a boat, and who, it seems, 
the monster fruitlessly chased. They describe the animal as growing 
furious, when it found them escaping. “It lashed the water with 
its tail, which seemed to be about seventy-five feet distance from. 
its head. he head was as large and round as a floar-barrel; and 
its eyes of a greenish hue, looked “devilish”. Before resuming its 
journey up the Hudson, it squirted from its mouth a stream of 
foamy stuff resembling long shavings from a pine plank.” 
I have no reason to consider this account as a hoax, though it 
almost reads like one. In the Norwegian accounts it is said that the 
sea-serpent very often follows boats. I have explained this by the ani- 
mal’s curiosity, mixed with some fear. The young men may have ob- 
served the animal paddling with its hind flappers, a possible expression 
of some emotion, as I have also explained when speaking of the 
animal seen from the Kiwshiu Maru (n°. 151), and they may have 
ascribed the foam to the lashing of its tail; or it really lashed its 
tail, as I also supposed on that occasion (n°. 151). The length 
between head and tail estimated at seventy-five feet, is certainly 
not exaggerated. As the head is described round as a flour-barrel, 
it was evidently seen in its face. I refer to the animal of the 
Osborne (n°. 148) where the head seen from behind is also described 
and figured round as a bullet. Of the young men’s description 
that the eyes “looked devilish”, and also that of their colour being 
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