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appear to our minds so replete with wonder, and if they are unreal, it 
can scarcely be less interesting to trace out the manner in which some 
undoubted phenomena have given rise at different periods to such singular 
misconceptions. 
Except the sandy desert, and the boundless prairie, there is no portion 
of the globe’s surface so fruitful in optical illusion as the open sea; and 
there are no appearances thereon which should be subjected to severer 
tests than those of which we are about to speak. From the most ancient 
times, mankind have associated with the ocean, existences the most wild 
and wonderful. In the days of Plato, the classic Atlantis was believed 
only recently to have sunk below the surface of the Western Sea; and the 
legendary story of its inhabitants was still current. In the middle ages, 
shadowy lands were delineated in every direction on the outskirts of geo¬ 
graphical knowledge. Some proved real, as Madeira, whose clouded woods 
had long been avoided as the region of enchantment, until the English 
Robert a Machin and his bride found a secure refuge on its shores. Though 
Madeira turned out a “ terra firma,” another island, St. Borondon, whose 
existence about the same parallels appeared equally entitled to belief, has 
proved a continually flitting delusion, and the name only lives in the pages 
of the maritime chronicles of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Even 
in the present day, when fleets of ships passing to and fro the ends of the 
world, carry cool and educated navigators, free from superstition, versed 
in science—when the pursuits of the whalers compel the most constant 
and vigilant exploration, day and night, of the surface of the ocean—still, 
to the known islet, the surveyed shoal, and the beaconed rock, must be 
added, among the dangers of the deep, the uncertain Vigia. A short 
description of the Vigia (and we will confine ourselves to those of the 
Atlantic ocean) will be useful, for they bear upon our subject—one of the 
most cogent arguments against the existence of sea monsters, being the 
infrequency of their appearance, while the opportunities for observation 
are so greatly multiplied; and the question of the Vigia affording an exact 
parallel, the satisfactory solution of the mystery of the one would go far 
to explain that of the other. 
“ Vigia ” is a Spanish word signifying “ watch ” or “ look out,” and on 
charts is usually marked on spots supposed to be dangerous, and which 
should be approached with caution. Until very lately, these notices 
abounded on the charts of the Atlantic, and according to the authorities 
attached to each instance, and vouching for the reality of the danger, they 
were described generally as rocky pinnacles, or small islets, rising abruptly 
from unfathomable depths, and appearing level with, or just above, the 
