THE GREAT SEA SERPENT. 
85 
On this occasion they were not called into requisition ; my purpose 
and desire throughout being to furnish eminent naturalists, such 
as the learned Professor, with accurate facts, and not with exagge- 
rated representations, nor with what could by any possibility pro- 
ceed from optical illusion; and I beg to assure him that old 
Pontoppidan having clothed his sea-serpent with a mane could 
not have suggested the idea of ornamenting the creature seen 
from the ' Daedalus ' with a similar appendage, for the simple 
reason that I had never seen his account, or even heard of his 
sea-serpent, until my arrival in London. Some other solution 
must therefore be found for the very remarkable coincidence 
between us in that particular, in order to unravel the mystery. 
Finally, I deny the existence of excitement or the possibility 
of optical illusion. I adhere to the statements, as to form, colour, 
and dimensions, contained in my official report to the Admiralty, 
and I leave them as data whereupon the learned and scientific 
may exercise the ' pleasures of imagination ' until some more for- 
tunate opportunity shall occur of making a closer acquaintance 
with the ' great unknown ' — in the present instance most assuredly 
no ghost. 
P. M'QuHiE, late Captain of H.M.S. ' Daedalus.' " 
Of course neither Professor Owen, nor any one else, 
doubted the veracity or bo7ta fides of the captain and 
officers of one of Her Majesty's ships ; and their testimony 
was the more important because it was that of men accus- 
tomed to the sights of the sea. Their practised eyes would, 
probably, be able to detect the true character of anything 
met with afloat, even if only partially seen, as intuitively as 
the Red Indian reads the signs of the forest or the trail ; and 
therefore they were not likely to be deceived by any of the 
objects with which sailors are familiar. They would not be 
deluded by seals, porpoises, trunks of trees, or Brobdingna- 
gian stems of algae ; but there was one animal with which 
they were not familiar, of the existence of which they were 
unaware, and which, as I have said, at that date was 
