: Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature Science and Art No. 722 October 27 1877 by Various Chambers Robert Editor Chambers William Editor - Periodicals Chambers's Edinburgh Journal

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Editor: William Chambers Robert Chambers

SEA-MONSTERS.

It is a curious fact that recent scientific research has revealed the existence in the sea, at the greatest depths, of most minute and wonderfully formed organisms, the beauty and rarity of which necessarily secure our admiration; but instances of animals of enormous size being met with beyond those already known, are few and far between. This fact may be accounted for by the circumstance that while it is easy to construct instruments for capturing the smaller creatures living in the deep, it is a very different matter to entrap and secure an unseen monster, whose very size must endow him with enormous strength. The whale, so far as we know, is the largest denizen of the deep. Whether it is possible that it can be equalled by giants of some other order or race, is the point which public curiosity is very keen to have settled.

The appearance of great snakes at sea is recorded by more than one old voyager; but it would seem to have been only of late years that the idea of their existence has been generally confined to one, familiar to us all as the 'Great sea-serpent.'

'On the 6th of July 1734,' says this old seaman, 'as I was proceeding on my second voyage to Greenland, in the latitude of the Cape of Good Hope, a hideous monster was seen to raise its body so high above the water that its head overtopped our main-sail. It had a pointed nose, and spouted out water like a whale; instead of fins it had great broad flaps like wings; its body seemed to be grown over with shell-work, and its skin was very rugged and uneven; when it dived into the water again, it threw up its tail, which was like that of a serpent, and was at least a whole ship's length above the water; we judged the body to be equal in bulk to our ship, and to be three or four times as long.'

An animal of exactly similar shape and dimensions was reported as being seen in the subsequent August by twelve persons in Massachusetts Bay; and soon after on three different occasions in the same quarter by the crew of a coasting vessel.

Strange as all these stories seem, it is difficult to suppose they are all quite untrue, for nautical superstition apart, we have the ready testimony of various men of education and veracity. That there is only one serpentine monster in the ocean, is an idea which the great disparity in the various descriptions would seem to contradict; and certainly the most astounding aspect presented by this supposed and most ubiquitous animal, was his form and size when seen by the officers of the Queen's yacht off the coast of Sicily; though it is somewhat singular that these gentlemen made no attempt to kill or capture the mighty fish, or whatever it was they saw.

FROM DAWN TO SUNSET.

Strange and terrible tidings reached Enderby the day after that. As Deborah Fleming was standing in the red sunset, she saw old Jordan, in his scarlet waistcoat and shirt sleeves, running bare-headed towards her under the archway. Deborah went quietly forward to meet him, dreading and yet hoping, she knew not what.

'Master Sinclair's shot!' gasped the old man. 'Killed a-duelling!'

'Who shot him?' asked Deborah, with the blood coursing in a fierce wild tide of joy through her veins, and yet a sure foreboding of the truth. 'Who? Who?'

'Need ye ask, Mistress Deborah?' asked Jordan, shaking his gray head, and regarding her with a wild reproachful gaze. 'Why, Master Charlie. Who else?'

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