116 
POPULAK SCIENCE EEVIEW. 
With similar un scrupulousness, Pontoppidan first propagated 
the story of the Sea-serpent and many other marine monstrosi- 
ties, supporting his descriptions by illustrations certainly derived 
from his imagination. 0. Magnus writes of the Kraken in 
corresponding terms, 44 similiorem insulae, quam bestice .” Later 
on the name of Denis de Montfort appears upon the scene, and 
he, by fully endorsing, with greater exaggerations, the fables of 
Pontoppidan and 0. Magnus, only rendered previous confusion 
worse confounded, and hid behind a yet more impenetrable veil 
of mystery that line of demarkation between truth and fiction 
which doubtless existed at the outset. The adoption of these 
fables by De Montfort was the more pernicious in its effects, 
on account of the reputation he had acquired as a naturalist, 
and the measure of confidence with which the creations of his 
inventive imagination were consequently accepted. Even 
Linnaeus was deceived by the descriptions of the Kraken, and 
gives it a place under the title of Sepia microcosmos in both 
his 44 Fauna of Sweden ” and the first edition of his 44 Systema 
Naturae.” A fac-simile of Denis de Montfort’s most sensational 
representation of this creature, in which the monster is por- 
trayed as overpowering and dragging to destruction a three- 
masted vessel, will be found in Mr. J. Grwyn Jeffreys’ excellent 
44 Manual of British Conchology,” vol. v., p. 148. 
Emerging from the cloud of doubt and mystery which en- 
shrouds the history of the Kraken, we now approach the firmer 
standing-ground of modern record and investigation. 
Pernetty, in his 44 History of a Voyage to the Malouines 
Islands,” made in the years 17 63-4, speaks of gigantic cephalopods 
inhabiting the southern seas and known to the sailors in those 
parts under the title of the 44 Cornet.” Molina, in his 44 Natural 
History of Chili,” 1789, supports the statements of Pernetty, 
and remarks of one species inhabiting the Chilian Seas, Sepia 
tunicata , that it weighs at least 150 lbs. 
Peron relates an account of a large Calamary observed float- 
ing in the neighbourhood of Van Diemen’s Land (see his 44 Voyage 
to Southern Lands,” 1824). The body of this monster is described 
as resembling a cask, and its large arms to have presented the 
appearance of enormous snakes writhing upon the surface of 
the water. The length of these arms is given as between 6 
and 7 ft., with a diameter of 7 or 8 ins. This creature was pro- 
bably a large Poulpe or Octopus. 
Quoy and Graimard furnish us, in their 44 Voyage of the Urania,” 
in the same year, 1824, with additional valuable evidence re- 
lative to this subject; having encountered in the Atlantic, near 
the Equator, the debris of an enormous specimen, the greater 
portion of which, including the tentacles, had already been de- 
voured by the sharks and sea-birds ; that remaining was esti- 
