Sea Monsters Unmasked, and Sea Fables ExplainedLee, Henry
History
Sea Monsters Unmasked, and Sea Fables Explained
Lee, Henry
Cephalopoda; Marine animals
In his 'Journal of the Missions to Greenland' this author tell us that--
"On the 6th of July, 1734, there appeared a very large and
frightful sea monster, which raised itself so high out of the water
that its head reached above our main-top. It had a long, sharp
snout, and spouted water like a whale; and very broad flappers. The
body seemed to be covered with scales, and the skin was uneven and
wrinkled, and the lower part was formed like a snake. After some
time the creature plunged backwards into the water, and then turned
its tail up above the surface, a whole ship-length from the head.
The following evening we had very bad weather."
The high character of the narrator would lead us to accept his
statement that he had seen something previously unknown to him (he does
not say it was a sea-serpent) even if we could not explain or understand
what it was that he saw. Fortunately, however, the sketch made by Mr.
Bing, one of his brother missionaries, has enabled us to do this. We
must remember that in his endeavour to portray the incident he was
dealing with an animal with the nature of which he was unacquainted, and
which was only partially, and for a very short time, within his view. He
therefore delineated rather the impression left on his mind than the
thing itself. But although he invested it with a character that did not
belong to it, his drawing is so far correct that we are able to
recognise at a glance the distorted portrait of an old acquaintance, and
to say unhesitatingly that Egede's sea-monster was one of the great
calamaries which have since been occasionally met with, but which have
only been believed in and recognised within the last few years. That
which Mr. Egede believed to be the creature's head was the tail part of
the cuttle, which goes in advance as the animal swims, and the two side
appendages represent very efficiently the two lobes of the caudal fin.
In propelling itself to the surface the squid raised this portion of its
body out of the water to a considerable height, an occurrence which I
have often witnessed, and which I have elsewhere described (see pp. 23
and 27). The supposed tail, which was turned up at some distance from
the other visible portion of the body, after the latter had sunk back
into the sea, was one of the shorter arms of the cuttle, and the suckers
on its under side are clearly and conspicuously marked. Egede was, of
course, in error in making the "spout" of water to issue from the mouth
of his monster. The out-pouring jet, which he, no doubt, saw, came from
the locomotor tube, and the puff of spray which would accompany it as
the orifice of the tube rose to the surface of the water is sketched
with remarkable truthfulness. In quoting Egede, Pontoppidan gives a copy
(so-called) of this engraving, but his artist embellished it so much as
to deprive it of its original force and character, and of the honestly
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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