"'I have been informed,' he says, 'by some of our sea-faring men that a cable[27] would not be long enough to measure the length of some of them when they are observed on the surface of the water in an even line. They say those round lumps or folds sometimes lie one after another as far as a man can see. I confess, if this be true, that we must suppose most probably that it is not one snake, but two or more of these creatures lying in a line that exhibit this phenomenon.' In a foot-note he adds: 'If any one enquires how many folds may be counted on a sea-snake, the answer is that the number is not always the same, but depends upon the various sizes of them: five and twenty is the greatest number that I find well attested.' Adam Olearius, in his Gottorf Museum, writes of it thus: 'A person of distinction from Sweden related here at Gottorf that he had heard the burgomaster of Malmoe, a very worthy man, say that as he was once standing on the top of a very high hill, towards the North Sea, he saw in the water, which was very calm, a snake, which appeared at that distance to be as thick as a pipe of wine, and had twenty-five folds. Those kind of snakes only appear at certain times, and in calm weather.'" [27] Six hundred feet. I believe that in every case so far cited from Pontoppidan, as well as that given by Olaus Magnus, the supposed coils or protuberances of the serpent's body, were only so many porpoises swimming in line in accordance with their habit before mentioned. If an upraised head, like that of a horse, was seen preceding them, it was either unconnected with them, or it certainly was not that of a snake; for no serpent could throw its body into those vertical undulations. The form of the vertebrae in the ophidians renders such a movement impossible. All their flexions are horizontal; the curving of their body is from side to side, not up and down. The sea-monster seen by Egede was of an entirely different kind; and his account of it--let sceptics deride it as they may--is worthy of attention and careful consideration. The Rev. Hans Egede, known as "The Apostle of Greenland," was superintendent of the Christian missions to that country. He was a truthful, pious, and single-minded man, possessing considerable powers of observation, and a genuine love of natural history. He wrote two books on the products, people, and natural history of Greenland,[28] and his statements therein are modest, accurate, and free from exaggeration. His illustrations are little, if at all, superior in style of art to the two Japanese wood-cuts shown on page 29, but they bear the same unmistakable signs of fidelity which characterise those of the Japanese. [28] 'Des alten Groenlands neue Perlustration,' 8vo., Frankfurt, 1730, and 'Det Gamle Groenlands nye perlustratione eller Naturel Historie.' 4to., Copenhagen, 1741.