DOES THE SEA-SERPENT EXIST?

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1682, 25 May 1904, Page 37 (Supplement)

DOES THE SEA-SERPENT EXIST?

In the “Leisure Hour” for March, Mir Frank T. BuMem, in an article on seaserpents, gives some probable explanations supported by illustrations, of the fabulous monsters of the deep which have so frequently been recorded in maritime ‘stories with wonderment , and dismay. It is unnecessary to say that Mr Bullion, out of hfiia own wide experiende, successfully disposes of any claim for the of such a type of sear-monster. Hie then proceeds:— Are fihere then no searserpehts? Certainly there are, very man-w and exceedingly dangerous ophidians they are, beins: highly poisonous. The largest of them is almost as thick a man’s leg. and from eight to ten feet long. They abound! on the Indian coats, and in the Eastern archipelago I have seen, them pursuing their devious way along the calm surface. They all

have a flattened end to their tail, im stead of its coming to a point, as does that of all the land shakes. I have (heard, on good authority, they are responsible for the deaths of many Lascars'in the country vessels of India, climbing up the coir hawsers with which the vessels are anchored, 'through the hawse-pipes and biting the sleeping men.

But these are not the sea-serpents whose characteristics, as seen by latterday chroniclers, all bear the stamp of Olaus Magnus or Pontoppidan. The enormous length, serpentine shape, mane of hair, side paddles, etc., all bespeak a common origin. New it would ill become any one. least of all those knowing something of

the fearsome-creatures that have of -late years been found to inhabit the great depths of the sea, to say that we shall •'never find or see any terrific monster upheaved from the ocean floor. Only if such there be it will not be a serpent, or a mammal such as Professor Oudemans believe in, a soft of Zeuglodon 250 feet long.