[The other was on a lighter, but equally perennial point of interest, being nothing less than the Sea Serpent. In the "Times" of January 11, he writes, that while there is no reason against a fifty-foot serpent existing as in Cretaceous seas, still the evidence for its existence is entirely inconclusive. He goes on to tell how a scientific friend's statement once almost convinced him until he read the quartermaster's deposition, which was supposed to corroborate it. The details made the circumstances alleged by the former impossible, and on pointing this out, he heard no more of the story, which was a good example of the mixing up of observations with conclusions drawn from them. And on the following day he replies to another such detailed story:--] Admiral Mellersh says, "I saw a huge snake, at least 18 feet long," and I have no doubt he believes he is simply stating a matter of fact. Yet his assertion involves a hypothesis of the truth of which I venture to be exceedingly doubtful. How does he know that what he saw was a snake? The neighbourhood of a creature of this kind, within axe-stroke, is hardly conducive to calm scientific investigation, and I can answer for it that the discrimination of genuine sea-snakes in their native element from long-bodied fish is not always easy. Further, that "back fin" troubles me; looks, if I may say so, very fishy. If the caution about mixing up observations with conclusions, which I ventured to give yesterday, were better attended to, I think we should hear very little either about antiquated sea-serpents or new "mesmerism." [It is perhaps not superfluous to point out that in this, as in other cases of the marvellous, he did not merely pooh-pooh a story on the ground of its antecedent improbability, but rested his acceptance or rejection of it upon the strength of the evidence adduced. On the other hand, the weakness of such evidence as was brought forward time after time, was a justification for refusing to spend his time in listening to similar stories based on similar testimony.