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The Sea-Serpent: Zoologist

Not having the Zoologist at hand, I now quote a resumé of short notices extracted from it, contained in the Illustrated London News for October 28, 1848, as follows :- "Our attention has been drawn to the Zoologist for the past year, wherein are several communications tending to authenticate the existence of the great sea-serpent. Thus, in the number for February 1847, we find paragraphs quoted from the Norse newspapers stating that in the neighbourhood of Christiansund and Molde, in the province of Romsdal, in Norway, several highly respectable and credible witnesses have attested the seeing of the serpent. In general, they state that it has been seen in the larger Norwegian fjords, seldom in the open sea. In the large bight of the sea at Christiansund it has been seen every year, though only in the warmest season, in the dog days, and then only in perfectly calm weather and unruffled water. "Its length is stated at about forty-four feet, and twice as thick as a common snake, in proportion to the length. The front of the head was rather pointed, the eyes sharp, and from the back of the head commenced a mane like that of a horse. The colour of the animal was a blackish brown. It swam swiftly, with serpentine movements like a leech. One of the witnesses describes the body to be two feet in diameter, the head as long as a brandy anker (ten-gallon cask) and about the same thickness, not pointed, but round. It had no scales, but the body quite smooth. The witness acknowledged Pontoppidan's representation to be like the serpent he saw." "The writer of this article received letters from Mr. Soren Knudtzon, stating that a sea-serpent had been seen in the neighbourhood of Christiansund by several people; and from Dr. Hoffmann, a respectable surgeon in Molde, stating that, lying on a considerable fjord to the south of Christiansund, Rector Hammer, Mr. Krabt, curate, and several persons, very clearly saw, while on a journey, a sea-serpent of very considerable size. "Four other persons saw a similar animal, July 28th, 1845. "The next communication, dated Sund's Parsonage, August 31st, 1846, records the appearance of a supposed sea-serpent, on the 8th, in the course between the islands of Sartor Leer and Tös. Early on this day, just as the steamer Biörgvin passed through Rogne Fjord, towing a vessel to Bergen, Daniel Solomonson, a cotter, saw a sea-monster swimming from Rogne Fjord in a westerly direction towards his dwelling at Grönnevigskiæset, in the northern part of the parish of Sund. The head appeared like a Færing boat (about twenty feet long) keel uppermost; and from behind it raised itself forward in three, and sometimes four and five undulations, each apparently about twelve feet long. On the same morning a lad, out fishing in the Rogne Fjord, saw a serpent, which he describes to have been sixty feet long."