398 THE VARIOUS EXPLANATIONS. | The: she} 
“A long tape fish, or even a basking shark of huge dimensions, might 
do duty in the eyes of non zoological observers for a “sea-serpent”’.” 
Mr. Lez, in his Sea Monsters Un- 
masked, 1883, also believes that “the 
dorsal fins of basking sharks, as figured 
by Mr. Buckland, may have furnished 
the “ridge of fins’. Here he evidently 
means the ridge of fins as seen in fig. 44. 
None of the observers of the sea-serpent 
mention fins on its back, so that this 
explanation is not untenable either. 
The eighth explanation is given by 
Mr. Mrrcuint in his paper “Ox Sea- 
Serpentism’, printed in 1828; (See our 
Chapter on Hoaxes), at the end of which 
he supposed that also the appearances of 
balaenopterous whales may have given 
rise to reports of the sea-serpent. He says: 
“which have fins on their back’, and yet 
he cannot show me one single account of 
the sea-serpent, in which there is question 
of backfins. Moreover, who has ever heard 
of fin-fishes which bend their body in 
such a manner as to show bunches on 
their backs, or coils like a string of 
buoys? Fig. 57 shows the readers a fin- 
fish (Balaenoptera physalus (Linnt). It 1s 
the largest kind of whales, it may obtain 
a length of 106 feet. An outline of the 
tail, seen from above, is added above 
the hindmost part of the main-figure. 
Mr. Gossk in his Romance of Natural 
History, after having considered and upset 
the sea-weed hypothesis and the seal- 
theory says: | 
“It is by no means impossible that the 
creature may prove to belong to the 
Cetacea or whale tribe. I know of no reason why a slender and 
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