(The 10th. ] THE VARIOUS EXPLANATIONS. 401 
The tenth explanation. —— In Frorimp’s Notizen, Vol. 40, (1834), 
n°. 879, p. 328, we read that, in a note to Mr. Bakewe 1's 
latest (1834?) edition of his /xtroduction to Geology, above mentioned, 
Prof. Bensamtn Sinuiman adds: 
“Mr. Bakewell’s very sensible conjecture that the sea-serpent may 
be a Saurian, agrees still more with the supposition, that it is a 
Plesiosaurus, than an Ichthyosaurus, as the short neck of the 
latter does not agree with the common appearance of the sea-serpent.”” 
Plesiosaurians, as well as the Lchthyosaurians, are reptiles only 
known in a fossil state. Only the bones of the skeleton of these 
animals are found in Europe as well asin America and in Australia in 
hassic and oolitic formations. Of these remains geologists are able 
to build up or to “restore” the whole skeleton, of which I show 
my readers a sketch in fig. 60. — If this is done, it will not be 
difficult to imagine how the animal must have looked, the more 
so as it is a well-known fact.that these animals must have been 
destitute or nearly destitute of scales. The figures drawn by Gossz, 
Fievrer and Anprew Wirson, don ‘t please me, as the necks are 
delineated too slender, and the head of the animal in Mr. Gossz’s 
drawing, in’ my opinion, is wrongly represented. So I venture to 
present to my readers my fig. 61, showing how I think that the 
animal must have looked. 
Mr. Ratuxz, in the Archiv fir Naturgeschichte, of 1841, after 
publishing some accounts of the sea-serpent, collected by himself 
during a journey in Norway, and after declaring that he himself 
is a firm believer in it, goes on: 
# 
Fig. 60. — Skeleton of Plesiosaurus dolichodeirus. 
26 
