SEA-SERPENT AND SCIENCE

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 17, 20 January 1934, Page 20

SEA-SERPENT AND SCIENCE

"WILD EXAGGERATIONS"

(By "Ajax.")

The Case for the Sea-serpent.. By Lieut.-Commander R. T. Gould, B.N. (retired'). 8| • x si, xii + . .291 pp. London: Philip, Allan. : 1930. . .. [2nd Notice.] Mr. Gould's reference to the article oa the Sea-serpent in the 14th edition of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica, '' th» date of which is not, as he says, ,1930, but. 1929, as "much shorter" than the article on the same subject in the 11th edition (1911) recalled my standing quarrel with the latest edition of the "Britannica" for the omission or abridgement of so much of the best matter in its predecessor. The book had to be "humanised," we were told, and it had to be brought up tp date; which meant that, in the interests of the modern and scientific, much that ■was entirely admirable and entirely, human in history and biography, learning and; letters had to be sacrificed." But the treatment given to the sea-ser-pent in. the Americanised edition of the book is almost as poor in quality as it is in quantity. Not merely is the allotted space \reduced by nearly 60 per cent., but: not even the names of the best authenticated cases are allowed to remain,, and for the three valuable illustrations of the 1911 edition, which include a sketch of the creature seen from the "Daedalus" in 1848, the reproduction of a 16th century wood-cut of a mythical monster is substituted. Science has not gained much by that exchange) , '- ■'* ■.• .■'..♦■, * Before quitting the "Encyclopaedia Britannica" I must mention that a few - months ago,, when I wanted to know what starfishes feed on, I read in the last edition as follows: — Sea-stars are the scavengers of the sea, but unfortunately do not. confine their attentions to decaying matter; they eat oysters, clams, mussels, barnacles, seasnails, worms, crustaceans, and even smaller sea-stars. No less than 42,000 bushels; of sea-istars were removed from ■ th« oyster-beds of Connecticut in a single year;'they had damage to the amount of 631,500 dollars. Gratitude for a very interesting fact compelled me to moderate my strong prejudice against the "Britannica" of 1929, but not for long. When I con : suited the edition of 1911 I found that the whole of this'passage had,, except for the r change of "starfishes" ,int.o "''sea-stars," 'been taken almost verbatim frbjnj that edition.. Notwithstanding the 'American jand scientific bias of the latest' edition of -the "Britannica," the trouble had hot been taken to bring tEis .striking but at least eighteen-year-old American.'fact up to date. ■••''". ** >, *■'.. i *.■ ..'■.. '.' .' So --far as Lieut.-Oommander Gould is aware, only one of his predecessors had attempted to collect.all,the available evidence on : the subject of the seaserpent -and to discuss it fairly and fully. The result was a volume entitled "The Great Sea-Serpent: An. Historical and Critical Treatise," which was published by Dr. A. C. Oudejnans, Jzn., Doctor of Zoology and Botany, at The Hague in 1892. Though the writer was a Dutchman he wrote with all'the. thoroughness ; and., clumsiness of a learned German, but why he . should .have written in English, which was a foreign language both to- himself and his printer, is not explained.'"" ' .;!,.',-...f?.."'..."''' Considered 'simply va6" a piece of English, . says Mr. Gould, the book is by no means ..ill-written; but it is not easy readjag, and ■ its style has a 1 peculiar sharpness—approaching petulance., Occasionally, too, there are amusing "lachefc" (sic),r:as;.when i;.we are informed that the whale ...is;,.encased in a thick layer of "bacon"-rfor. blubber. .. :.: 1.*,5...- * * ■ ... AJI appears, to, have been fish, that came to thjs> net of Dr. Oudemans in the name of the sea-serpent, and "upon his not'exactly trustworthy foundation he erected a vast;' superstructure of theory which they are in no way fit to support." From ; the 187 cases collected by Dr. Oudemans, together with others which had 'occurred since the date of his bookj Lieut.-Commander Gould has selected about 30 for examination. ; ■.•'■''.■'■■. The principles governing this selection have been, he says, first, to admit no cape concerning whose provenance there is any doubt; and, secondly, to reject any in which, there appears the slightest likelihood that some known creature was mistaken for what was reported. He has verified the details of each case as far as possible,. and has never relied upon any secondary version when it was possible. Both in his setting out of the evidence arid in his discussion Of ifc Mr. Gould impresses me as a careful,-- candid,, dispassionate,, and 'open-minded inquirer. His\ sense of the humorous and picturesque and the profusion of illustrations and figures add to the attractions of a very readable book. •# ■ _■■■.' • * ;A better illustration of the fallibility of' h.uman testimony and of the rapidity of the:myth-making process could hardly be' desired, than the contrast between the facts which H.M.S. Daedalus brought with her to Plymouth on October 4, 1848, and the form in which they were first published. On her way home from the East - Indies by way of the Cape, she had encountered a strange seacreature in. the South Atlantic. Three days later, a "Times" correspondent had written a report of the incident quoted below, ■ and after the lapse of another three .days it was published by that paper (October 10). .. '■".,•■ • . .' ■ • • NAVAL INTELLIGENCE. PLYMOUTH, October 7. .When the Daedalus frigate, Captain McQuhae, which arrived here on the 4th irist;, was on her passage home from the East Indies, between the Cape of Good Hope and St. Helena, her captain, and most o£ her officers and crew, at 4 o'clock one afternoon saw a sea-serpent. The creature was twenty minutes in sight of V the frigate, and passed under her quarter. Its head appeared to be about four feet out of the water, and there was about 60 feet of its body in a straight line on the surface. It is calculated that there must have been under water a length of 30 or 40 feet more, by which it propelled itself at the rate of 15 miles an hpur. The diameter of the exposed part of the body was about 16 inches, and when it extended its jaws, which, were full of large jagged teeth, they seemed sufficiently capacious to admit of a tall man standing upright between them. The ship was sailing north at the rate of eight.miles an hour. The Daedalus left the Cape on' the 30th of July, and reached St. Helena on the 16th of August. Describing the report as "wildly exaggerated," Lieutenant-Commander Gould comments specifically as follows: — ■ . It may be pointed out that, in fact, the creature, was not seen (close to) by "most of her officers and crew," but by seven persons only: that it was only visible (to the naked' eye) for about- five minutes; and that no "jagged teeth" were observed, for +he simple reason that the creature was

not seen to open its mouth. Apart fro these points and one or two minor erroi the paragraph is tolerably correct.

Though those, jagged teeth were wholly imaginary, the capacity of the jaws '' to admit of a tall man standing upright between them,'' might seem to be something more than a "minor error." The mistaking of a corvette' for a frigate was also a fairly serious blunder for a correspondent in a naval port, but, of course, it goes to his credit only, and does not touch any detail of the narrative. " ■ .