Pleasant Ways in Science

by Richard A. Proctor

The correspondence and controversy elicited by the statement of Captain M’Quhæ were exceedingly interesting. It is noteworthy, at the outset, that few, perhaps none, who had read the original statement, suggested the idea of illusion, while it need hardly perhaps be said that no one expressed the slightest doubt as to the bona fides of Captain M’Quhæ and his fellow-witnesses. These points deserve attention, because, in recent times, the subject of the sea-serpent has been frequently mentioned in public journals and elsewhere as though no accounts of the creature had ever been given which had been entitled to credence. I proceed to summarise the correspondence which followed M’Quhæ’s announcement. The full particulars will be found in Mr. Gosse’s interesting work, the “Romance of Natural History,” where, however, as it seems to me, the full force of the evidence is a little weakened, for all save naturalists, by the introduction of particulars not bearing directly on the questions at issue.

Among the earliest communications was one from Mr. J. D. M. Stirling, a gentleman who, during a long residence in Norway, had heard repeated accounts of the sea-serpent in Norwegian seas, and had himself seen a fish or reptile at a distance of a quarter of a mile, which, examined through a telescope, corresponded in appearance with the sea-serpent as usually described. This communication was chiefly interesting, however, as advancing the theory that the supposed sea-serpent is not a serpent at all, but a long-necked plesiosaurian. This idea had been advanced earlier, but without his knowledge, by Mr. E. Newman, the editor of the Zoologist. Let us briefly inquire into the circumstances which suggest the belief.

If we consider the usual account of the sea-serpent, we find one constant feature, which seems entirely inconsistent with the belief that the creature can be a serpent. The animal has always shown a large portion of its length, from 20 to 60 feet, above the surface of the water, and without any evident signs of undulation, either vertically or horizontally. Now, apart from all zoological evidence, our knowledge of physical laws will not permit us to believe that the portion thus visible above the surface was propelled by the undulations of a portion concealed below the surface, unless this latter portion largely exceeded the former in bulk. A true fish does not swim for any length of time with any but a very small portion of its body above water; probably large eels never show even a head or fin above water for more than a few seconds when not at rest. Cetaceans, owing to the layers of blubber which float them up, remain often for a long time with a portion of their bulk out of the water, and the larger sort often swim long distances with the head and fore-part out of water. But, even then, the greater part of the creature’s bulk is under water, and the driving apparatus, the anterior fins and the mighty tail, are constantly under water (when the animal is urging its way horizontally, be it understood). A sea creature, in fact, whatever its nature, which keeps any considerable volume of its body out of water constantly, while travelling a long distance, must of necessity have a much greater volume all the time under water, and must have its propelling apparatus under water. Moreover, if the propulsion is not effected by fins, paddles, a great flat tail, or these combined, but by the undulations of the animal’s own body, then the part out of water must of necessity be affected by these undulations, unless it is very small in volume and length compared with the part under water. I assert both these points as matters depending on physical laws, and without fear that the best-informed zoologist can adduce any instances to the contrary. It is in fact physically impossible that such instances should exist.

It would not be saying too much to assert that if the so-called sea-serpent were really a serpent, its entire length must be nearer 1000 than 100 feet. This, of course, is utterly incredible. We are, therefore, forced to the belief that the creature is not a serpent. If it were a long-necked reptile, with a concealed body much bulkier than the neck, the requirements of floatation would be satisfied; if to that body there were attached powerful paddles, the requirements of propulsion would be satisfied. The theory, then, suggested, first by Mr. Newman, later but independently by Mr. Stirling, and advocated since by several naturalists of repute, is simply that the so-called sea-serpent is a modern representative of the long-necked plesiosaurian reptile to which has been given the name of the enaliosaurus. Creatures of this kind prevailed in that era when what is called the lias was formed, a fossiliferous stratum belonging to the secondary or mesozoic rocks. They are not found in the later or tertiary rocks, and thereon an argument might be deduced against their possible existence in the present, or post-tertiary, period; but, as will presently be shown, this argument is far from being conclusive. The enaliosaurian reptiles were “extraordinary,” says Lyell, “for their number, size, and structure.” Like the ichthyosauri, or fish-lizards, the enaliosauri (or serpent-turtles, as they might almost be called) were carnivorous, their skeletons often enclosing the fossilized remains of half-digested fishes. They had extremely long necks, with heads very small compared with the body. They are supposed to have lived chiefly in narrow seas and estuaries, and to have breathed air like the modern whales and other aquatic mammals. Some of them were of formidable dimensions, though none of the skeletons yet discovered indicate a length of more than 35 feet. It is not, however, at all likely that the few skeletons known indicate the full size attained by these creatures. Probably, indeed, we have the remains of only a few out of many species, and some species existing in the mesozoic period may have as largely exceeded those whose skeletons have been found, as the boa-constrictor exceeds the common ringed snake. It is also altogether probable that in the struggle for existence during which the enaliosaurian reptiles have become almost extinct (according to the hypothesis we are considering), none but the largest and strongest had any chance, in which case the present representatives of the family would largely exceed in bulk their progenitors of the mesozoic period.

A writer in the Times of November 2, 1848, under the signature F. G. S., pointed out how many of the external characters of the creature seen from the Dædalus corresponded with the belief that it was a long-necked plesiosaurus. “Geologists,” he said, “are agreed in the inference that the plesiosauri carried their necks, which must have resembled the bodies of serpents, above the water, while their propulsion was effected by large paddles working beneath, the short but stout tail acting the part of a rudder.... In the letter and drawing of Captain M’Quhæ ... we have ... the short head, the serpent-like neck, carried several feet above the water. Even the bristly mane in certain parts of the back, so unlike anything found in serpents, has its analogue in the iguana, to which animal the plesiosaurus has been compared by some geologists. But I would most of all insist upon the peculiarity of the animal’s progression, which could only have been effected with the evenness and at the rate described by an apparatus of fins or paddles, not possessed by serpents, but existing in the highest perfection in the plesiosaurus.”

At this stage a very eminent naturalist entered the field—Professor Owen. He dwelt first on a certain characteristic of Captain M’Quhæ’s letter which no student of science could fail to notice—the definite statement that the creature was so and so, where a scientific observer would simply have said that the creature presented such and such characteristics. “No sooner was the captain’s attention called to the object,” says Professor Owen, “than ‘it was discovered to be an enormous serpent,’” though in reality the true nature of the creature could not be determined even from the observations made during the whole time that it remained visible. Taking, however, “the more certain characters,” the “head with a convex, moderately capacious cranium, short, obtuse muzzle, gape not extending further than to beneath the eye, which (the eye) is rather small, round, filling closely the palpebral aperture” (that is, the eyelids fit closely[25]); “colour and surface as stated; nostrils indicated in the drawing by a crescentic mark at the end of the nose or muzzle. All these,” proceeds Owen, “are the characters of the head of a warm-blooded mammal, none of them those of a cold-blooded reptile or fish. Body long, dark brown, not undulating, without dorsal or other apparent fins, ‘but something like the mane of a horse, or rather a bunch of sea-weed, washed about its back.’” He infers that the creature had hair, showing only where longest on the back, and therefore that the animal was not a mammal of the whale species but rather a great seal. He then shows that the sea-elephant, or Phoca proboscidea, which attains the length of from 20 to 30 feet, was the most probable member of the seal family to be found about 300 miles from the western shore of the southern end of Africa, in latitude 24° 44´. Such a creature, accidentally carried from its natural domain by a floating iceberg, would have (after its iceberg had melted) to urge its way steadily southwards, as the supposed sea-serpent was doing; and probably the creature approached the Dædalus to scan her “capabilities as a resting-place, as it paddled its long, stiff body past the ship.” “In so doing it would raise a head of the form and colour described and delineated by Captain M’Quhæ”—its head only, be it remarked, corresponding with the captain’s description. The neck also would be of the right diameter. The thick neck, passing into an inflexible trunk, the longer and coarser hair on the upper part of which would give rise to the idea “explained by the similes above cited” (of a mane or bunch of sea-weed), the paddles would be out of sight; and the long eddy and wake created by the propelling action of the tail would account for the idea of a long serpentine body, at least for this idea occurring to one “looking at the strange phenomenon with a sea-serpent in his mind’s eye.” “It is very probable that not one on board the Dædalus ever before beheld a gigantic seal freely swimming in the open ocean.” The excitement produced by the strange spectacle, and the recollection of “old Pontoppidan’s sea-serpent with the mane,” would suffice, Professor Owen considered, to account for the metamorphosis of a sea-elephant into a maned sea-serpent.

This was not the whole of Professor Owen’s argument; but it may be well to pause here, to consider the corrections immediately made by Captain M’Quhæ; it may be noticed, first, that Professor Owen’s argument seems sufficiently to dispose of the belief that the creature really was a sea-serpent, or any cold-blooded reptile. And this view of the matter has been confirmed by later observations. But few, I imagine, can readily accept the belief that Captain M’Quhæ and his officers had mistaken a sea-elephant for a creature such as they describe and picture. To begin with, although it might be probable enough that no one on board the Dædalus had ever seen a gigantic seal freely swimming in the open ocean—a sight which Professor Owen himself had certainly never seen—yet we can hardly suppose they would not have known a sea-elephant under such circumstances. Even if they had never seen a sea-elephant at all, they would surely know what such an animal is like. No one could mistake a sea-elephant for any other living creature, even though his acquaintance with the animal were limited to museum specimens or pictures in books. The supposition that the entire animal, that is, its entire length, should be mistaken for 30 or 40 feet of the length of a serpentine neck, seems, in my judgment, as startling as the ingenious theory thrown out by some naturalists when they first heard of the giraffe—to the effect that some one of lively imagination had mistaken the entire body of a short-horned antelope for the neck of a much larger animal!

Captain M’Quhæ immediately replied:—“I assert that neither was it a common seal nor a sea-elephant; its great length and its totally different physiognomy precluding the possibility of its being a Phoca of any species. The head was flat, and not a capacious vaulted cranium; nor had it a stiff, inflexible trunk—a conclusion to which Professor Owen has jumped, most certainly not justified by my simple statement, that ‘no portion of the 60 feet seen by us was used in propelling it through the water, either by vertical or horizontal undulation.’” He explained that the calculation of the creature’s length was made before, not after, the idea had been entertained that the animal was a serpent, and that he and his officers were “too well accustomed to judge of lengths and breadths of objects in the sea to mistake a real substance and an actual living body, coolly and dispassionately contemplated, at so short a distance too, for the ‘eddy caused by the action of the deeply immersed fins and tail of a rapidly moving, gigantic seal raising its head above the water,’ as Professor Owen imagines, in quest of its lost iceberg.” He next disposed of Owen’s assertion that the idea of clothing the serpent with a mane had been suggested by old Pontoppidan’s story, simply because he had never seen Pontoppidan’s account or heard of Pontoppidan’s sea-serpent, until he had told his own tale in London. Finally, he added, “I deny the existence of excitement, or the possibility of optical illusion. I adhere to the statement as to form, colour, and dimensions, contained in my report to the Admiralty.”

A narrative which appeared in the Times early in 1849 must be referred to in this place, as not being readily explicable by Professor Owen’s hypothesis. It was written by Mr. R. Davidson, superintending surgeon, Najpore Subsidiary Force Kamptee, and was to the following effect (I abridge it considerably):—When at a considerable distance south-west of the Cape of Good Hope, Mr. Davidson, Captain Petrie, of the Royal Saxon, a steerage passenger, and the man at the wheel, saw “an animal of which no more correct description could be given than that by Captain M’Quhæ. It passed within 35 yards of the ship, without altering its course in the least; but as it came right abreast of us it slowly turned its head towards us.” About one-third of the upper part of its body was above water, “in nearly its whole length; and we could see the water curling up on its breast as it moved along, but by what means it moved we could not perceive.” They saw this creature in its whole length with the exception of a small portion of the tail which was under water; and by comparing its length with that of the Royal Saxon, 600 feet, when exactly alongside in passing, they calculated it to be in length as well as in other dimensions greater than the animal described by Captain M’Quhæ.

In the year 1852 two statements were made, one by Captain Steele, 9th Lancers, the other by one of the officers of the ship Barham (India merchantman), to the effect that an animal of a serpentine appearance had been seen about 500 yards from that ship (in longitude 40° E. and 37° 16´ S., that is, east of the south-eastern corner of Africa). “We saw him,” said the former, “about 16 or 20 feet out of the water, and he spouted a long way from his head”—that is, I suppose, he spouted to some distance, not, as the words really imply, at a part of his neck far removed from the head. “Down his back he had a crest like a cock’s comb, and was going very slowly through the water, but left a wake of about 50 or 60 feet, as if dragging a long body after him. The captain put the ship off her course to run down to him, but as we approached him he went down. His colour was green with light spots. He was seen by every one on board.” The other witness gives a similar account, adding that the creature kept moving his head up and down, and was surrounded by hundreds of birds. “We at first thought it was a dead whale.... When we were within 100 yards he slowly sank into the depths of the sea; while we were at dinner he was seen again.” Mr. Alfred Newton, the well-known naturalist, guarantees his personal acquaintance with one of the recipients of the letters just quoted from. But such a guarantee is, of course, no sufficient guarantee of the authenticity of the narrative. Even if the narrative be accepted, the case seems a very doubtful one. The birds form a suspicious element in the story. Why should birds cluster around a living sea creature? It seems to me probable that the sea-weed theory, presently to be noticed, gives the best explanation of this case. Possibly some great aggregation of sea-weed was there, in which were entangled divers objects desirable to birds and to fishes. These last may have dragged the mass under water when the ship approached, being perhaps more or less entangled in it—and it floated up again afterwards. The spouting may have been simply the play of water over the part mistaken for the head.