Pleasant Ways in ScienceProctor, Richard A. (Richard Anthony)
Science
Pleasant Ways in Science
Proctor, Richard A. (Richard Anthony)
Science
In 1848, when the captain of the British frigate _Dædalus_ had
published an account of a similar animal seen by him and several of his
officers and crew, the Hon. Colonel T. H. Perkins, of Boston, who had
seen the animal on the occasion just mentioned in 1817, gave an account
(copied from a letter written in 1820) of what he had witnessed. It
is needless to quote those points which correspond with what has
been already stated. Colonel Perkins noticed “an appearance in the
front of the head like a single horn, about nine inches to a foot in
length, shaped like a marlinspike, which will presently be explained.
I left the place,” he proceeds, “fully satisfied that the reports in
circulation, though differing in details, were essentially correct.”
He relates how a person named Mansfield, “one of the most respectable
inhabitants of the town, who had been such an unbeliever in the
existence of this monster that he had not given himself the trouble to
go from his house to the harbour when the report was first made,” saw
the animal from a bank overlooking the harbour. Mr. Mansfield and his
wife agreed in estimating the creature’s length at 100 feet. Several
crews of coasting vessels saw the animal, _in some instances within a
few yards_. “Captain Tappan,” proceeds Colonel Perkins, “a person well
known to me, saw him with his head above water two or three feet, at
times moving with great rapidity, at others slowly. He also saw what
explained the appearance which I have described of a horn on the front
of the head. This was doubtless what was observed by Captain Tappan to
be the tongue, thrown in an upright position from the mouth, and having
the appearance which I have given to it. One of the revenue cutters,
whilst in the neighbourhood of Cape Ann, had an excellent view of him
at a few yards’ distance; he moved slowly, and upon the appearance of
the vessel sank and was seen no more.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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