Statements so interesting and important, of course, elicited much correspondence and controversy. Mr. J. D. Morries Stirling, a director of the Bergen Museum, wrote to the Secretary of the British Admiralty, Captain Hamilton, R.N., saying that while becalmed in a yacht between Bergen and Sogne, in Norway, he had seen, three years previously, a large fish or reptile of cylindrical form (he would not say "sea serpent") ruffling the otherwise smooth surface of the fjord. No head was visible. This appears to have been, like the others from the same locality, a large calamary. Mr. Stirling unaware, doubtless, that Mr. Edward Newman, editor of the _Zoologist_, had previously propounded the same idea, suggested that the supposed serpent might be one of the old marine reptiles, hitherto supposed only to exist in the fossil state. This letter was published in the _Illustrated News_ of October 28th, and four days afterwards, November 2nd, a letter signed F.G.S. appeared in the _Times_, in which the same idea was mooted, and the opinion expressed that it might be the _Plesiosaurus_. This brought out that great master in physiology, Professor Owen, who in a long, and, it is needless to say, most able letter to the _Times_, dated the 9th of November, 1848, set forth a series of weighty arguments against belief in the supposed serpent, which I regret that I am unable, from want of space, to quote _in extenso_. The reasoning of the most eminent of living physiologists of course had its influence on those who could best appreciate it; but, as it went against the current of popular opinion, it met with little favour from the public, and has been slurred over much too superciliously by some subsequent writers. He suggested also that the creature seen might have been a great seal, such as the leonine seal, or the sea-elephant (the head, as shown in the enlarged drawing, was wonderfully seal-like), but it was generally felt that this explanation was unsatisfactory. The nature of his criticism of the official statement will be seen from Captain M'Quhae's reply, which was promptly given in the _Times_ of the 21st of November, 1848, as follows:--