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Show DON'T JOSH THE SEA SEBPEMT feet attributed by Dr. Oudei.,ans to his hypothetical creature, which, he says appears to have a bead resembling that of the sea lion, an eel-like neck, a hairy Beal-Iike trunk with two dippers dip-pers on each side anl a tapering, pointed tail. Tbe males of this species like those of the seal, he thinks, are probably adorned with i.he mane which figures so persistently in sea serpent descriptions. CAN the sea serpent be longer denied? Is it the remnant of a mon-. mon-. strous species supposedly extinct, ex-tinct, or soma adventurer from .he deep sea lair of a modern race of leviathans as yet undiscovered by icience? Such queries I have been flinging at some distinguished naturalists, with widely varying results, which I shall proceed to report at once, especially Inasmuch as my investigation brings to light the scientifically established fact that August is our sea serpent month par excellence. "I incline rather to belief than to unbelief un-belief in the moster," Director Frederick Fred-erick A. Lucas of the American Museum Mu-seum of Natural History told me. "The biggest sea serpents we know of 1!ved In the eocene period," says he. "Take, for instance, the zeuglodon. He would tally perfectly with some of the most sensational sea serpent descriptions which we hear year after year. The zeuglodon grew as large as 70 feet in length and eight feet in diameter. His head was small and pointel. His jaws were well armed with grasping and cutting teeth. Just back of his head he carried a pair of short paddles, not unlike those of a fur seal. "He must have reared at least a third of his great length out of the water, to take a comprehensive view of the surroundings. His tail must have propelled him at a speed of from 20 to 30 miles an hour. "Zeuglodons were once very numerous numer-ous in the Gulf of Mexico, also the old seas of southern Europe. They have been called 'whalelike king lizards,' but in reality were mammals, not reptiles. The zeuglodon is usually thought to be the ancestor of the whale, but I think he died without issue." is-sue." One recent sea-serpent story in which Director Lucas takes some stock is that of the captain of the British ship Fly, who states that while becalmed in the Gulf of California, in 12 fathoms of remarkably clear water. some examples. Let us dispose of one of the most conspicuous pictures of the sea serpent yet printed. This in given in a work of Erik Pontoppi-dan, Pontoppi-dan, bishop of Bergen, Norway, who wrote more than a century and a half ago describing giant sea serpents and mermaids, which he believed really existed. He being a godly man should not be distrusted entirely. , "This monster was represented with1 its front portion out of water and as having a large frill about its neck. Its tail was long and tapering, and ended in a spiral curve. From its mouth issued is-sued a jet of water or vapor. Now, certainly, such a form does not exist, but what was it? "Well, now let's look at the cuttlefish cuttle-fish or squid. Some of these have been found as long as 60 feet. The tail of such a giant cuttlefish may have been taken for the head of this monster serpent, the fins of the tail corresponding corre-sponding to the frills described. The spiral tail might easily have been one of the great cuttlefish's curved arms appearing out ' the water, and the jet of water might have been the siphon of the cuttlefish, by which it propels itself in the water. How much imagination would be required to add the unreasonable features of this picture?" pic-ture?" What proved for a time to be the most successful sea serpent hoax on record, according to Dr. Gill, was perpetrated per-petrated in New York by a pseudo-scientist, Dr. Albert C. Koch, in 1845. He exhibited on Broadway the skeleton of an alleged fossil monster which he named tbe "hydrarchos" or "sea king." The remains, including the head and vertebrae, measured no less than 114 feet over all, and the people of New York, as well as of other American cities visited, were greatly excited over the discovery of tangible proof that the long-suspected sea serpent existed. ex-isted. But finally Prof. Wyman, a naturalist nat-uralist of considerable circumspection, examined the skeleton and discovered discov-ered it to be a composite, including the bones of several zeuglodons he saw crawling over the bottom an extraordinary lizard-like monster, with long, serpent-like neck, short tail, and four flippers, like those of a turtle. The naturalist regards it as remarkable, remark-able, to say the least, that this skipper, skip-per, who doubtless had never heard of a plesiosaur, should thus describe one with amazing accuracy, both as to form and probable habit. The director regards it as just as possible for the : plesiosaur to survive as for some of our sharks, which date back to the same geologic period. In the acaompani'ing group of three gigantic sea lizards you will perceive In the left foreground the terrible elasmosaur, the most colossal and most serpent-like of all that ancient group. With its whale-like body, long md flexible neck, short paddles and Berpentine tail it would answer well to popular descriptions of the sea serpent. Its tremendous size is attested at-tested by its vertebrae, some of which, now preserved, are nearly as large as those of the elephant. In the right background of the picture is its cousin, the mosasaur, of which no fewer than ten species are known to have inhabited this part of the world, six having been found in New Jersey. This terrible sea lizard attained a length of 40 feet. Its head was flat and pointed and its lower jaw was provided pro-vided with an attachment of cartilege by which it could open its mouth to enormous extent in the same manner as the modern snake. The central figure in this group is another of these creatures known as the laelops, a great kangaroo-like lizard which frequented fre-quented the land. "There are no monster sea serpents," ser-pents," was the emphatic reply of Dr. Theodore N. Gill, the distinguished Ichthyologist of the Smithsonian Institution. In-stitution. "There is no animal of gigantic gi-gantic size now living in the sea which could be properly classed as a serpent or even a reptila "It is possible that a great selachian related to the frilled shark of Japan may be found in the seas. This would have an eel-like body, a fin back of the head and, if very long, would agree to some extent with descriptions of the 'great sea serpent.' As a matter of fact there was discovered not many years ago a small snake-like shark, resembling re-sembling the grap sharks found in the Pacific." "Do you regard all reports of monster mon-ster sea serpents as pure figments of the imagination?" I asked Dr. Gill. "Most of the w'onderful creatures made the subject of sea serpent Btories doubtless are living animals of Bome sort," he replied. "I will give strung together. When last heard of by Dr. Gill this "sea serpent" was sold by Koch to the museum of Dresden. Dres-den. The accompanying photograph of the skeleton of a zeuglodon properly proper-ly mounted has been furnished me by Dr. Gill, and was made from the un-equaled un-equaled specimen obtained by the Smithsonian some time ago from our southern coast. The federal bureau of fisheries has been hunting the sea serpent ever since it was founded. Its second officer offi-cer in command, vDr. Hugh M. Smith, United States deputy commissioner of Fisheries, told me yesterday, how he has personally followed to their lairs two or three of the most horrible of these creatures. While scientists are not in accord on the question. Dr. Smith thinks that some circumstantial evidence recently gathered "will perhaps weaken the belief of some intelligent persons, who have heretofore denied the possibility of the existence at this day of marine monsters comparable to those of geological geo-logical times." A zealous champion of the sea serpent's ser-pent's reality is Dr. A. C. Oudemans, the well-known zoologist. After collecting col-lecting all obtainable reports of sea serpent visitations along our sastern coast and throwing out palpable "cheats and hoaxes," he has obtained evidence of 66 such monsters reported between Newfoundland and Florida within a period of 139 years. These monsters, he says, are migratory, migra-tory, and that they do not like cold water is shown by the fact that none has been reported along our coasts between be-tween November and January, inclusive, inclu-sive, while only two have been seen during February, March and April. Their return with warm weather, however, how-ever, is shown by the record of three in flay, nine in June, seven in July and finally a round couple of dozen in August, which, as stated, is our sea serpent month par excellence. After this the visitations taper off four in September, two in October and none in November. The fact that comparatively compara-tively few of these monsters have been reported from our Pacific coast is, according to Dr. Oudemarrj, due to the fact that the greater ocean is far less frequented by ocean passengers rather than to the probable absence of such creatures from its waters. The sea serpent is a great mammal most nearly related to the sea bear, according to this naturalist. In view of some zoologists the great zeuglodon was closely related to this same species, but its greatest known length. 70 feet, is far surpassed by the 250 |