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tSyg.j 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
MENTAL INANITION. 
To the Editor of the Monthly Journal of Science . 
Sir, — May I ask whether sufficient attention has been paid to 
the following curious analogy ? It is well known that external 
agencies, such as malaria, make the most prompt and deep im- 
pression upon the human body when in a state of inanition. In 
like manner, objects seen, events witnessed, or words overheard 
when we are in a state of mental inanition, stamp themselves 
upon the memory with a permanence out of all proportion to 
their interest or importance. Thus, having once to walk for 
about io 'miles through a most uninviting country, on a very dull 
day, in order to escape the greater evil of waiting for two hours 
at a railway-station, I saw a butcher washing out an inkstand 
in the street just outside his shop. It is difficult to conceive a 
more insignificant occurrence, and yet it has remained as if burnt 
into my memory. I could give other matters equally trifling, 
remembered because at the time of their happening my mind 
was, so to speak, hungry for impressions. — I am, &c., 
S. 
THE SEA-SERPENT. 
To the Editor of the Monthly Journal of Science . 
Sir, — Referring to “ Sceptic’s ” question respecting the Sea- 
Serpent, in your April number, there is no doubt that Captain 
Drevar and his mate, of the barque Pauline , deposed to the 
truth of their story, of having seen a sea-serpent, before a ma- 
gistrate at Liverpool. Capt. Drevar’s story is related by the 
Rev. E. L. Penny, Chaplain to H.M.S. London, at Zanzibar, in 
the “Illustrated London News” for November 20, 1875. — 
I am, &c„ 
M. H. Close. 
40, Lower Baggot Street, Dublin, 
April 23, 1879. 
