confined to the element in which alone so monstrous a form could continue 
unexposed to the observation of man; and now within the last 50 or 60 
years, when no accounts are received except at their true value, we have 
more frequent instances of its appearance, all agreeing in their general 
detail of circumstances ; and lastly, we have one, if not two cases of 
dead animals having been found, which correspond remarkably in many 
particulars with the supposed sea serpent; though unfortunately in the 
most important one the carcass was cast ashore in a place too remote for 
its careful examination by qualified persons before natural decay and the 
action of the sea had mutilated it. 
It is not probable that all the appearances recorded of late years (grant¬ 
ing their authenticity) have been those of the same creature or class; 
some of them may doubtless be properly assigned to the cetaceous families, 
of which it is confessed by the best zoologists, we have but a very inaccu¬ 
rate knowledge; and others may fairly be considered as the accidental 
visits of sharks or other large fish, rare in the latitudes where seen, and 
which, under peculiar circumstances and to excited imaginations, have 
given the idea of nondescript monsters. 
In order that our readers may be enabled the better to judge of the 
true nature of modern testimony, it will be necessary to quote one or two 
of the earlier descriptions of the sea serpent, after which we propose 
scrupulously to limit our instances to those which, authenticated by names 
and dates, give strong and reasonable grounds for believing that the 
creatures seen were really those whose verification is among the deside¬ 
rata of natural history. 
Hans Egede,the well-known Danish missionary to the coast of Greenland 
in the early part of last century, after adverting generally to sea monsters, 
and describing several, goes on to say :—“ But none of them have been 
seen by us, or any of our time that ever I could hear, save that most 
dreadful monster that showed itself upon the surface of the water in the 
year 1734, off our new colony, in 64° N. This monster was of so huge a 
size, that coming out of the water, its head reached as high as the mast¬ 
head, its body w T as as bulky as the ship, and three or four times as long; it 
had a long pointed snout and shoulders like a w'hale fish, great broad paws, 
and the body seemed covered with shell-work, its skin very rugged and 
uneven. The utider part of its body was shaped like an enormous huge 
serpent, and when it dived again under water, it plunged backwards into 
the sea and so raised its tail aloft, which seemed a whole ship’s length 
distant from the bulkiest part of its body.” 
Pontoppidan, the Norwegian bishop, speaks at large of the sea serpent 
