[The 10th. ] THE VARIOUS EXPLANATIONS. 409 
cient answer to refer to the construction of the breathing apparatus, 
distinctive of the marine ophidians, enabling them to live long 
under water, and respire air with an almost imperceptible expo- 
sure above the surface, because the like provision does not prevent 
the Pacific denizens from being abundantly subject to observation. 
The want of conformity in some of the reported particulars of form 
and dimensions is of insignificant moment, and may easily be 
converted into a proof of innocence of design. Above all, the ob- 
jections, be it understood, are not of the kind which the public 
at large appear to imagine them. There is nothing ridiculous or 
abnormal in the idea of a sea-serpent. So far from this the philo- 
sopher should rather be required to give a reason why at least 
the warmer situations of the Atlantic are unprovided with occup- 
ants corresponding to those which dwell in the opposite region 
of the globe.” 
“If the diversity of detail be accounted too serious an objection 
to be so lightly dismissed, is there no other organization within 
our cognizance which more satisfactorily embodies the several con- 
ditions rather loosely intimated than prescribed throughout the 
problem? The portraits given in authors of the restored Plesiosaurus, 
albeit conceived to represent beings that “filled up the measure of 
their years long before Eden was planted, and the dominions of 
man made of the red earth, acknowledged” (Hawkins), offer several 
particulars answering to those ascribed in most of the notices on 
record to the sonamed sea-serpent, — the long, over-arched neck , 
the huge trunk, the protracted tail, and sometimes (see the depos- 
ition of Archdeacon Deinbolt, “Zoologist”? 1606) an appearance of 
fins or paddles. This coincidence is the more remarkable, because 
no one can suppose it to have been preconcerted. Hence the ingen- 
ious suggestion of the Editor of the “Zoologist”, that the animals 
may belong to one of the Enaliosaurian types, seems to supply 
the only deficient link in the chain of demonstration, before we 
arrive at the final proof, a spectacle open to all observers. The 
neck of the Plesiosaurus (presuming this to be the genus indicated) 
“is composed of upwards of thirty bones, a number far exceeding 
that of the cervical vertebrae in any other known animal. ‘Ihis 
reptile combines in its structure the head of a lizard with teeth 
like those of a crocodile, a neck resembling the body of a serpent, 
a trunk and tail of the proportions of those of a quadruped, with 
paddles like those of turtles” (Mantell’s Wonders of Geology). If 
this seemingly whimsical coaptation of incongruous members, which 
