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Show THE SEA SERPENT APPEARS TO THE SCIENTIST Tales Handed Down of Wonderful Creatare Mounter Kt-itxitly Swn by Well-Known Naturalists Legs of the Sea-Snake. Verily tho pcrvorslty of mankind pasBoth all understanding! And if thore bo any who would challenge tho Justice of this aphorism, lot him rollcct for a moment on thu fact that wu talk of tho Phoenix ns If It were rcnl, and of the sea-orpont as though It were n purely mythical beast 1 Rut the sea-serpent sea-serpent Is probably himself to blamo for this, Inasmuch ns ho Is Indiscreet enough to show himself from time to tlmo to those who go dowu to tho sea In ships. Hence, an with othor distinguished mortals, everybody who has occasion to cross tho ocean burns for nn opportunity to boast nn acquaintance ac-quaintance with this distinguished i dwellor In the deeps Naturally, "lund lubbers," out of I plquo anil Jealous) , belittle tho expert-' enecs of thoso who profess to have seen this monster, and yot llol Hut, ns a rule. In their efforts to crush, thoy have to use weapons obtained at , secondhand, weapons borrowed from other ocean travelers who nssuro us, on their own expeilenco, that tho sea-serpent sea-serpent Is a creature va,lnly Imagined, a figment of tho brnln, n tiling born of nftor dinner orgies; It may oven have a scinblnnco of reality, but whon nnalyzcd It proves to bo nothing moro than a school of porpoises playing at "follow-my-loniler." a gigantic cuttle flshvnlnly waving Its long nrms In nn endeavor to escnpo the grip of somo hungry whalo' On occnslotiB, Indeed, tho sea serpent has turned out to bo I nothing moro Interesting than a Moating Moat-ing spar decorated with a tauglo of ' soa-weedl A vast amount hns boon written about Uio sca-sorpont, but of all tho than there appiared it huge eel-ltko neck, some six feet lung, nnd ns thick as a man's thigh, mid this neck win surmounted by a great turtle-llko head with largo eyes, now borne high above tho sen, whkh was quite calm. It was dark colored above and silvery whlto bolow. After n few moments tho head and lleck were slowly lowered, and when level with the water wore violently' vio-lently' InHhed from side to side, churning churn-ing up the sea Into a great sheet of foam, niuPthen It nnlshed. Adverse vvluds caused the ship to beat about bo that at midnight thoy were only 20 mill's from the sreno of the morning. This Is noteworthy, becnuso when Mr, Mroll ramo on deck after breakfnstone of the officers ramo up nail reported that durtnft the night ho saw a strnngo ronimotloii In the water. At first he thought It was a rock "awash," but a most careful examination examina-tion showed that It was a beast of noruo Kind, traveling faster than the ship, which wns then mnkltig only about eight and a half knotn The of fleer J'h j'.led tho deck" nnd tho lookout look-out mail, and thus got witnesses to this weird phenomenon. Though the sen was! calm, nnd there was n bright moon, nothing satisfactory could bn mado oat owing to the wash" which tho creature wns making, but In Its tuoeineni8 It resembled a submarino 1 traveling just bolow the snifaco Seriously wo can no longer legnul j tho "si a serpent" as a in tit. Thero ' enn bo no question but that tho ocean harbors some Beeiet whleh wo hnvo not yet penetrated. It seems unlikely that this evaslvo creature should bo a descendunt of tho old Pleslosaurs MHMMHVMMKJWanMHMMHMaa.MMaVAfatfMMi a nnaii ki'.iliici: Nicac Ari'iAKi:D, stories that have bocn told, it is Bad . to reflect that thoso of clorgymen ' surpass In wlldness of elaboration oven the jams Invented with Intent to deceive." At loast, ho says Mr i Frank llullin and ho ought to know! Ono or two of tho moie serious accounts ac-counts aro worth repeating No longer long-er ago than 1E91, one Peter .SVlson, a qunrteriniiHter, and theiefore "an honorablo innu," baw from the deck of thu Rotoinnhana a beast with tho head of an eel und litis ten feel long rise 30 feet out of tho water. R was dark above, and whlto below. Ho gave a long account of this strange beast, yot, so far, thoso whom ho Intended to contort only reply thnt It was "very llko a whalo" In short, thnt ho saw nothing moro than a whalo "breaching." "breach-ing." Capt. McQuhao, of II. M, S. Daedalus, nnd his officers, In 1818 created n great sensation In Ruglaud by a sea-so- ent story which nt tho time was discredited by tho lato Prof. Sir Richard Rich-ard Owen. Rut time brings its revenues, re-venues, for It inny turn out that tho professor was wrong Ilrlelly, ho reported re-ported having seen an enormous sor pont with head and shoulders somo four foot out of tho wnter, and somo 60 foet of its body on the surface. It jiansod rapidly bo close to tho ship that a man's features at the samo distance dis-tance could easily have bocn distinguished. distin-guished. It had no fins, but something llko seaweed washed about Its back. Now within tho last fow weeks tho honor of tho captain and his officers, or rather, their credit as observers, has boon singularly vindicated, for at tho last meeting of tho London Zoo logical society Mr. K. R. Mcado Waldo and Mr. M. J. Nlcoll described a creature crea-ture soon by them from the deck of tho carl of Crawford's yacht, tho Valhalla, Val-halla, which bears a remarkable resemblance re-semblance to that seen from tho paodaluB, These two gentlemen, accompanied ac-companied Lord Crawford as natural-ists natural-ists during his usual winter crulso. Doth are well-known naturalists, and one Is a member of tho council of tho Zoological society The story thoy unfolded to a breathlessly excited assembly as-sembly of the Fellows Is briefly tills: When off Vara on December 7, 1905, at ton a. in., thoy woro standing on tho deck of tho yacht, when their attontlon atton-tlon was caught by n curious sall-llko objoct of Mmo four feet long and two feet high waving from sldo to sldo in the water. No sooner hnd they turned their glasses on to this strango object . which became extinct millions of ' years ago, though the reseuiblanco to thoso monsters Is striking. Moro 1 probably it will prove to ho some bl.arre form of leptlle Rut the re- semblance between the descriptions given by thetio gentlemen and that given by tho oIIUcih of the Daedalus agrees too close!) to he passed l) and furthermore, belli agiee with the description of a similar eientuie seen off Tonqulu Nome four years since it 1 Is possible that It may even prove to bo n ''Hoipfiit." For It Is well known , thnt tho laud snakes once possessed j limbs, nnd Home glgnntle forms of Hen I snake may 'jell hnvo preserved Kb limbs, though now tiaiisforiued Into paddles, llko thoso of tho turtle and whalo W. P. PYCRAFT. |