But all the evidence heretofore obtained respecting the sea-serpent, although regarded by many naturalists, Gosse, Newman, Wilson, and others, as demonstrating the existence of some as yet unclassified monster of the deep, seems altogether indecisive by comparison with that which has recently been given by the captain, mates, and crew of the ship _Pauline_. In this case, assuredly, we have not to deal with a mass of sea-weed, the floating trunk of a tree, a sea-elephant hastening to his home amid the icebergs, or with any of the other more or less ingenious explanations of observations previously made. We have either the case of an actual living animal, monstrous, fierce, and carnivorous, or else the five men who deposed on oath to the stated facts devised the story between them, and wilfully perjured themselves for no conceivable purpose—that, too, not as men have been known to perjure themselves under the belief that none could know of their infamy, but with the certainty on the part of each that four others (any one of whom might one day shame him and the rest by confessing) knew the real facts of the case. The story of the _Pauline_ sea-serpent ran simply as follows, as attested at the Liverpool police-court:—“We, the undersigned, captain, officers, and crew of the bark _Pauline_, of London, do solemnly and sincerely declare, that on July 8, 1875, in latitude 5° 13´ S., longitude 35° W., we observed three large sperm whales, and one of them was gripped round the body with two turns of what appeared to be a huge serpent. The head and tail appeared to have a length beyond the coils of about 30 feet, and its girth 8 or 9 feet. The serpent whirled its victim round and round for about fifteen minutes, and then suddenly dragged the whale to the bottom, head first.—George Drevat, master; Horatio Thompson, chief mate; John H. Landells, second mate; William Lewarn, steward; Owen Baker, A.B. Again on the 13th July a similar serpent was seen about 200 yards off, shooting itself along the surface, head and neck being out of the water several feet. This was seen only by the captain and an ordinary seaman.—George Drevat. A few moments afterwards it was seen elevated some 60 feet perpendicularly in the air by the chief officer and two seamen, whose signatures are affixed.—Horatio Thompson, Owen Baker, William Lewarn.”