438 THE VARIOUS EXPLANATIONS. [The 13th.] 
years since I saw this figure, but I recollect that it was one of a 
blunt-nosed animal with a neck carried about four feet above the 
water, which was so long as to present the appearance of a serpent; 
and I remember that Prof. Owen, in combating at the time the 
idea that this was a sea-serpent, pointed out that the position ot 
the gape in relation to the eye, as shown in the figure in the 
Illustrated News, was that of a mammal, and not that of a reptile; 
in consequence of which he argued that the animal seen was probably 
only a leonine seal, whose track through the water gave an illusory 
impression of great length. This idea, however, seemed to me un- 
tenable in the face of the representation in the L/lustrated News ; 
but it was obvious that to afford the buoyancy necessary for the 
support above the water of so long a neck (estimated on that 
occasion as sixty feet though only the part near the head was 
actually out of the water), the submerged portion of the animal 
could not have had the shape of a serpent.” 
“To or three years after this, on reading the descrip tien of 
Zeuglodon cetoides, from the Tertiary (probably Upper Eocene) for- 
mations of Alabama, it struck me that the animal seen from the 
Daedalus may have been a descendant of the order to which 
Zeuglodon belonged; and I have ever since watched with interest 
for reports of the “preat sea-serpent’’.” 
“Three years ago the following appeared in the newspapers.” 
Here Mr. Sana Woop copies the whole affidavit of the crew 
of the Pauline (n°. 144), and adds: 
“The locality here specified was about thirty miles off the north- 
ern coast of Brazil.” 
And he goes on: 
“In this account I thought that I recognized the grip of the 
whale by the long neck of the attacking animal, the appearance 
being confounded into the double coil of a serpent by the distance 
and motions of the objects; but in face of the general ridicule 
which has been attached to this subject, and being without any 
assurance that the declaration so purporting to be made was gen- 
uine, I did not venture to ventilate my long-cherished idea. A 
relative of mine, however, just returned from India, chancing to 
say that two of the officers to the steamer in which she went out 
had on the previous voyage witnessed an immense animal rear its 
neck thirty feet out of the water, and that a sketch of the object 
had been instantly made, and on reaching port sent to the Graph. 
I obtained the number of that paper for July 19, 1879, and I 
