"'The latter end of August, in the year 1746, on my return from Trondhjem on a very calm and hot day, within six miles of Molde I heard a kind of murmuring voice from the men at the oars, and observed that the man at the helm kept off the land. I inquired what was the matter, and was told that there was a sea-snake before us. I then ordered the man at the helm to keep to the land again, and to come up with this sea-snake, of which I had heard so many stories; as the snake swum faster than we could row, I took my gun and fired at it; on this he immediately plunged into the water. We rowed to the place where it sunk down, thinking it would come to the surface; however, it would not. The head of this snake, which he held more than two feet above the surface of the water, resembled that of a horse. It was of a grayish color, and the mouth was quite black and very large; it had black eyes, and a long white mane that hung down from the neck to the surface of the water. Besides the head and neck we saw seven or eight coils or folds of the snake, which were very thick; and as far as we could guess, there was about a fathom distance between each fold.'
CAPTAIN LAWRENCE DE FERRY'S SEA-SERPENT.
"Captain Little, of the United States Navy, in 1781, describes a snake he saw in broad day on the coast of Maine, in 1780. It was about forty or fifty feet long and fifteen inches in diameter, and he carried three or four feet of his length out of water. Captain Little ordered out his boat to pursue the snake, but they did not succeed in capturing him.
"Rev. Donald Maclean, a Scotch minister, describes a snake that he saw in 1808, which greatly alarmed his own crew and that of several fishing-boats that were out with him. In 1809 an American clergyman, who was out in a boat with his wife and daughter and another lady, in Penobscot Bay, saw a serpent that they estimated to be about sixty feet long, and as large as a sloop's mast. About this time the same snake, or one closely resembling it, was frequently seen in the neighborhood of Penobscot Bay, and a few years later (1817) a similar sea-monster appeared near Gloucester, Massachusetts, and was seen on many occasions and by great numbers of persons. The Linnæan Society of Boston took the matter up, and collected the testimony of as many witnesses as could be reached. It remained in sight all the way from several minutes to two hours, and at distances varying from thirty feet to a quarter of a mile. One man saw it moving across the bay at the rate of a mile a minute; another watched it for half a day, and says it had a head shaped like a rattlesnake's, but as large as that of a horse. One man saw it open its mouth, which was like a snake's; another said the body was rough and scaly; and another that it darted out its tongue at least a couple of feet. Its length was estimated all the way from forty to eighty feet, and its color was dark. Finally, the magistrate before whom the testimony was taken had an opportunity of seeing the monster, and his evidence corroborates that of the rest.
HEAD OF CAPTAIN M'QUHAE'S SERPENT.
"In 1830 the sea-serpent appeared near Kennebunk, Maine, and was seen by several persons. In 1845 he showed himself near Lynn, Massachusetts, and he had a great many observers, among whom were several of the old merchants and other solid men of Boston and its vicinity. He has appeared several times since then at various points on the New England coast, but has not been seen by many persons.