Some may incline to think such an extensive monster would encroach on the symmetry of nature, and would be over proportionate to the size of the globe itself; as a little calculation will inform us, that the breadth of what is seen of him, supposing him nearly round, must be full 2600 feet, (if more oval, or crab-like, full 2000 feet,) and his thickness, which may rather be called altitude, at least 300 feet; our author declaring he has chosen the least circumference mentioned of this animal, for the greater certainty. These vast dimensions, nevertheless, we apprehend will not argue conclusively against the existence of the animal, though considerably against a numerous increase or propagation of it. In fact, the great scarcity of the kraken, his confinement to the North Sea, and perhaps to equal latitudes in the south; the small number propagated by the whale, which is viviparous; and by the largest land animals, of which the elephant is said to go nearly two years with young; all induce us to conclude, from analogy, that this creature is not numerous; which coincides with a passage in a manuscript ascribed to Svere, king of Norway, and it is cited by Ol. Wormius, in his Museum, p. 280, in Latin, which we shall exactly translate:—
“There remains one kind, which they call hasgufe, whose magnitude is unknown, as it is seldom seen. Those who affirm they have seen its body, declare, it is more like an island than a beast, and that its carcase was never found; whence some imagine that there are but two of the kind in nature.”
Whether the vanishing island Lemair, of which captain Rodney went in search, was a kraken, we submit to the fancy of our readers. In fine, if the existence of the creature is admitted, it will seem a fair inference, that he is the scarcest as well as the largest in our world; and that if there are larger in the universe, they probably inhabit some sphere or planet more extended than our own, and such we have no pretence to limit; but that fiction can devise a much greater than this, is evident from the cock of Mahomet, and the whale in the Bava Bathra of the Talmud, which were intended to be credited; and to either of which, our kraken is a very shrimp in dimensions.
We conclude this account in the words of Goldsmith: “To believe all that has been said of these animals, would be too credulous; and to reject the possibility of their existence, would be a presumption unbecoming mankind.”
CHAP. XVIII.
CURIOSITIES RESPECTING SERPENTS AND WORMS.
The Scorpion—The Boa Constrictor—The American Sea Serpent—Fascinating Serpents—The Caterpillar—Caterpillar-Eaters—The Silk-Worm—The Tape-Worm—The Ship-Worm—The Lizard imbedded in Coal.
The Scorpion.
Their flaming crests above the waves they shew,
Their bellies seem to burn the seas below;
Their speckled tails advance to steer their course,
And on the sounding shore the flying billows force.
And now the strand and now the plain they held;
Their ardent eyes with bloody streaks are fill’d;
Their nimble tongues they brandish’d as they came,
And lick’d their hissing jaws that sputter’d flame.
Dryden.