[The 22d. | THE VARIOUS EXPLANATIONS. 479 
Not that they saw any mane, but as they had been told of it, 
they thought they ought to have seen it. Less careful and conscien- 
tious persons would have persuaded themselves, and declared on 
oath, that they did see at.” 
“T need scarcely point out how utterly irreconcileable is the pro- 
verbially smooth, gliding motion of a serpent, with the supposition 
of its passage through the water causing such frictional disturbance 
that “white foam appeared before it, and at the side, which stret- 
ched out several fathoms’, and of “the water boiling around it on 
both sides of it’. The cuttle is the only animal that I know of 
that would cause this by the effluent current from its “syphon 
tube.” I have seen a deeply laden ship push in front of her a 
vast hillock of water, which fell off on each side in foam as it 
was parted by her bow; but that was of man’s construction. Na- 
ture builds on better lines. No swimming creature has such un- 
necessary friction to overcome. Even the seemingly unwieldy body 
of a porpoise enters and passes through the water without a splash, 
and nothing can be more easy and graceful than the feathering 
action of the flippers of the awkward-looking turtle.” 
Again I beg my readers to read the above-mentioned account, 
that they may decide for themselves, whether the animal was a 
sea-serpent or a great calamary. Mr. Lez’s last views of the motion 
of sea-animals is also wrong; I make bold to contradict here all 
his assertions; for instance, he says: “Nature builds on better 
lines’. I say: If nature built on better lines, men would long ago 
have imitated them. All creatures, when swimming rapidly on the 
surface, cause a splash. Swans, when moving as rapidly as possi- 
ble, cause heavy undulations before the chest, and I have obser- 
ved myself the common porpoises in the Guider Zee, which when 
coming to the surface to breathe, caused a splash and a rushing 
of water, which all who were on board distinctly saw and heard. 
The sea-serpent of Mr. Morris Stiriine (n°. 113) appeared , 
according to Mr. Henry Lex also “to have been, like the others 
from the same locality, a large calamary.”’ 
Of the sea-serpent seen by Captain M’Quuar and his officers 
he says: 
“Of course neither Professor Owen, nor any one else, doubted 
the veracity or bona fides of the captain and officers of one of Her 
Majesty's ships; and their testimony was the more important be- 
cause it was that of men accustomed to the sights of the sea. 
Their practised eyes would, probably, be able to detect the true 
