SEA SERPENT REPORTED

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 18945, 17 February 1925, Page 7

SEA SERPENT REPORTED

CLAIM OF FRENCH CREW, SEEN OFF AUSTRALIAN COAST. SPECULATION AGAIN REVIVED. fl'ROJr OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT. ] SYDNEY. Feb. 11. The serious entry in tho log of the French steamer St. Francois Xavier, which berthed at Newcastle, New South Wales, from Noumea, last Friday, regarding the sighting of a great sea serpent off the Port Stephen's lighthouse, has revived speculation in the press regarding the reality or otherwise of such a monster. They have raked history from the works of the ancients to modem times iu search of evidence to support the amazing but matter-of-fact entry in the St. Francois Xavier's log, and have produced quite a weighty array of data, fabulous and, maybe, otherwise. The entry in the log gives this laconic statement; " At 6.30 p.m. on February 2 several officers and a portion of the crew reported having seen, when exactly abeam of the lighthouse at Port Stephen's, a huge sea serpent of dark yellow colour, about 60ft in length and 2ft in diameter." The serpent was said to have been within a few feet of the steamer, and to have appeared to be asleep, its head and tail being in a horizontal position, while its body formed five coils. On the centre of the back was a spike like fin resembling that of a shark. The head was turtle-shaped with a graceful neck. Such is the description given by the Frenchmen in all seriousness. Public scepticism is such that nothing short of seeing will beget believing in such a matter as this, nevertheless it is interesting to find that delvers into the antecedents of sea serpents have found, apart from the rich products of ancient and medieval imagination, that in 1818 members of the crew of an American schoon-er are said to Jbave seen a sea serpent about 130 ft long. In an affidavit sworn before a Boston justice of the peace, they declared that for five hours it was in their viomity, and that " though they peppered it with bullets, the bullets recoiled from its skin as if it were a slate roof." About the same ti.rne the Linnean Society of New England was investigating the " Cape Ann ' sea serpent, a 130 ft monster terrifying the fishermen along the Massachusetts coast. Captain McQuhae, of H.M.S. Dactalus, encountered a sea serpent in the Atlantic Ocean off the African coast in 1848. He estimated the length at 60ft, with head and shoulders constantly kept four feet above the surface. Captain McQuhae's description varied in some details with that, of Lieutenant Druramorid, one of the officers who entered the details in his log at the time. Twenty seven years later Captain Drevor, of the Pauline, claimed that he saw a fight between a sea serpent and a whale off Cape San Roque. The whale lost. Many other cases are recorded, as recently as last year, when tho wireless operator of the French Mail steamer Pacifique, Mr. Martin, claimed to have seen a sea serpent about 150 ft long near the Loyalty Islands. Within three months the monster reappeared near Noumea and scared a number of fishermen and others.