were entombed at the bottom of the ocean of the secondary geological periods of our earth's history. During life the exigencies of the respiration of the great sea serpent would always compel him frequently to the surface; and when dead and swollen He would "Prone on the flood, extended long and large, "Lay floating many a rood; in bulk as huge "Such a spectacle, demonstrative of the species if it existed, has not hitherto met the gaze of any of the countless voyagers who have traversed the seas in so many directions. Considering, too, the tides and currents of the ocean, it seems still more reasonable to suppose that the dead sea serpent would be occasionally cast on shore. However, I do not ask for the entire carcase! The structure of the back bone of the serpent tribe is so peculiar that, a single vertebræ would suffice to determine the existence of the hypothetical Ophidian; and, this will not be deemed an unreasonable request, when it is remembered that the vertebræ are more numerous in serpents than in any other animals. Such large, blanched, and scattered bones on any sea shore would be likely to attract even common curiosity; yet, there is no vertebræ of a serpent larger than the ordinary pythons and boas in any museum in Europe. "Few sea coasts have been more sedulously searched, or by more accute naturalists (witness the labours of Sars and Loven), than those of Norway. Krakensand sea serpents ought to have been living and dying thereabouts from long before Pontoppidan's time, to our day, if all tales were true; yet, have they never vouchsafed a single fragment of their skeleton to any Scandinavian collector; whilst the other great denizens of those seas have been by no means so chary. No museums, in fact, are so rich in the skeletons, skulls, bones, and teeth of the numerous kinds of whales, cachalots, grampuses, walruses, sea unicorns, seals, &c., as those of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden; but, of any large marine nondescript or indeterminable monster they cannot show a trace. "I have inquired repeatedly whether the natural history collections of Boston, Philadelphia, or other cities of the United States, might possess any unusually large ophidan vertebræ, or any of such peculiar form as to indicate some large and unknown marine animal; but, they have received no such specimens. "The frequency with which the sea serpent has been supposed to have ap. peared near the shores and harbours of the United States has led to its being specified as the "American Sea Serpent;" yet, out of the two hundred vertebræ of every individual that should have lived and died in the Atlantic since the creation of the species, not one has yet been picked up on the shores of America. The diminutive snake, less than a yard in length, "killed upon the sea shore," apparently beaten to death, "by some labouring people of Cape Ann," United States, (see the 8vo. Pamphlet, 1817, Boston, page 38,) and figured in the Illustrated London News, October 28th, 1848, from the original American memoir, by no means satisfies the conditions of the problem. Neither do the vaccopharynx of Mitchell, nor the ophiognathus of Harwood, the one 4 feet, the other 6 feet, long; both are surpassed by some of the congers of our own coasts; and, like other muranoid fishes, and the known small sea snakes (hydrophis), swim by undulatory movements of the body. "The fossil vertebræ and skull which were exhibited by Mr. Kock, in New York and Boston, as those of the great sea serpent, and which are now in Berlin, belonged to different individuals of a species which I had previously proved to be an extinct whale, a determination which has subsequently been confirmed by Professors Müller and Agassiz. Mr. Dixon, of Worthing, has discovered many fossil vertebræ in the Eocene tertiary clay at Bracklesham, which belong to a large species of an extinct genus of serpent (palæaphiz), founded on similar vertebræ from the same formation in the Isle of Sheppey. The largest of these ancient British snakes was 20 feet in length; but, there is no evidence that they were marine. "The Sea Saurians of the secondary periods of geology have been placed in the tertiary and actual seas by marine Mammals. No remains of Cetacea have been found in Lias or Oolite, and no remains of Plesiosaur, or Icthyosaur, or any other secondary reptile, have been found in Eocene or latter tertiary deposits, or recent, on the actual sea shores, and that the old airbreathing saurians floated when they died has been shown in the Geological Transactions, (vol. v., second series, p. 512). The inference that may reason. ably be drawn from no recent carcase or fragment of such having ever been discovered, is strengthened by the corresponding absence of any trace of their remains in the tertiary beds. "Now, on weighing the question, whether creatures meriting the name of great sea serpent' do exist, or whether any of the gigantic marine saurians of the secondary deposits may have continued to live up to the present time, it seems to me less probable that no part of the carcase of such reptiles should have ever been discovered in a recent or unfossilized state, than that men should have been deceived by a cursory view of a partly submerged and rapidly moving animal, which might only be strange to themselves. In other words, I regard the negative evidence from the utter absence of any of the recent remains of great sea serpents, krakens, or Enaliosauria, as stronger against their actual existence than the positive statements which have hitherto weighed with the public mind in favour of their existence. A larger body of evidence from eye witnesses might be got together in proof of ghosts than of the sea serpent." Capt. McQuhae has made the following remarks on the foregoing: "Professor Owen correctly states, that I'evidently saw a large creature moving rapidly through the water, very different from anything I had before witnessed, neither a whale, a grampus, a great shark, an alligator, nor any other of the larger surface-swimming creatures fallen in with in ordinary voyages.' I now assert, neither was it a common seal, nor a sea elephant; its great length and its totally different physiognomy precluding the possibility of its being a Phoca' of any species. The head was flat, and not a 'capacious vaulted cranium'; nor had it a stiff inflexible trunk,' a conclusion to which Professor Owen has jumped, most certainly not justified by the simple statement, that no 'portion of the sixty feet seen by us was used in propelling it through the water, either by vertical or horizontal undulation.' "It is also asumed that the 'calculation of its length was made under a strong preconception of the nature of the beast ;' another conclusion quite the contrary to the fact. It was not until after the great length was developed by its nearest approach to the ship, and until after that most important point had been duly considered and debated, as well as such could be in the brief space of time allowed for so doing, that it was pronounced to be a serpent by all who saw it, and who are too well accustomed to judge of lengths and breadths of objects in the sea to mistake a real substance and an actual living body coolly and dispassionately contemplated, at so short a distance too, for NO. 12.-VOL. XVII. 4 P the eddy caused by the action of the deeper immersed fins and tail of a rapidly moving gigantic seal raising its head above the surface of the water,' as Professor Owen imagines, in quest of its lost iceberg. "The creative powers of the human mind may be very limited. On this occasion they were not called into requisition, my purpose and desire being throughout, to furnish eminent naturalists, such as the learned Professor, with accurate facts, and not with exaggerated representations, nor with what could by any possibility proceed from optical illusion; and I beg to assure him that old Pontoppidan having clothed his sea serpent with a mane, could not have suggested the idea of ornamenting the creature seen from the Daedalus, with a similar appendage, for the simple reason that I had never seen his account, or even heard of his sea serpent, until my arrival in London. Some other solution must therefore be found for the very remarkable coincidence between us in that particular, in order to unravel the mystery. "Finally, I deny the existence of excitement, or the possibility of optical illusion. I adhere to the statements, as to form, colour, and dimensions, contained in my official report to the Admiralty, and I leave them as data whereupon the learned and scientific may exercise the 'pleasures of imagination, until some more fortunate opportunity shall occur of making a closer acquaintance with the 'great unknown,' in the present instance most assuredly no ghost." A DAY OR TWO ON THE COAST OF LABRADOR.-By Capt. H. W. Bayfield, R.N. WE proceeded from the east point of Anticosti across towards Kegashka Bay, having an unsteady breeze from S.W., and saw Natashquan point on the coast of Labrador, bearing N.b. W. at 7 P.M. Great quantites of snow or packed ice was seen along the beaches; the same, although in less quantity also on the shores of Anticosti. As everything indicated a quiet night I wished to anchor with the stream to avoid being carried away by the currents, and to be in readiness to send a boat inshore in the morning. The great depth of water obliged us to stand closer in than we otherwise should, for we had no bottom with 50 fathoms of line: suddenly we struck soundings in 29 fathoms sand. The vessel was instantly rounded to, and the sails clewed up. The lead had been hove again for the purpose of ascertaining more particularly the nature of the bottom, for no one thought the depth of water could have changed as we had not moved twice the vessel's length. I was just about to give the order to let go the anchor when the quarter-master reported-" We are in shoal water, sir, only 6 fathoms." We anchored, an officer was sent to sound around the vessel, but we could not find less than 44 fathoms. There was a depth of 9 fathoms between us and the shore, distant about 11⁄2 mile. Three cables' length in the opposite direction there was no bottom at 30 fathoms. This is a bank of sand extending off the southwest extreme of Natashquan point, about a mile further than we were aware of last year. On the following morning the 22nd of June we had light breezes S.E. with rain and fog all day; we weighed last night at 11 P.M., after we had done sounding; were carried far to the westward by the current out of the river Natashquan, which discharges a great body of water at this early season of the year. It makes the surface of the sea fresh for seve ral miles around. Unaware of the strength of this current we were completely out of our reckoning, so that when we made the land through the rain we did not know for some time what place it was in which we saw several schooners lying. We however soon obtained a pilot in the person of the master of the Nova Scotian schooner Shelburne of 85 tons, (Phillips) who took us through between the rocks and anchored us among them, in Little Natashquan, a harbour for small craft in which there is from to 2 to 4 fathoms at low water over sand and clay bottom. Here we found six American schooners belonging to a very enterprising individual, (Mr. Billings,) of Eastport, in the State of Maine. They fish in boats off the entrance of the river Natashquan, about five miles from the harbour. These boats are like light whale boats, each having one peculiar sail, something like a shoulder of mutton sail in shape, but having a very short gaff, and a boom like a schooner's mainsail; it also runs up and down the long slender mast with hoops. There is a small block at the mast head which slips on and off with a strap like that used for the end of a sprit; through this a single rope as haulyards leads to the stern, another single rope is attached to the boom as a sheet, there is no other rigging. The lightness and simplicity of this rig is well suited to the employment. They catch immense quantities of cod fish here in the early part of the season, but after the month of June the bait (capelins) leave this place, and I suppose the cod fish follow their food. The fishermen follow the fish, and proceed more to the north-eastward; their next fishing place being in small harbours near Bradore Bay. Among the rocks a mile to the eastward of the anchorage of the Americans, were half a dozen small schooners, or shallops, as they are called, in the Gulf, these were British. There appeared great jealousy of the Americans, who are said to occupy the best fishing stations, from their superior numbers, although the British fishermen say they have no right to fish nearer than within three miles of the coast. It certainly is not pleasing to see foreigners of any kind thus swarming upon our coast to the injury of our own fishermen, but it is certain they have right from treaty to fish off our coasts under certain limitations. Two of these American schooners were of about 100 tons, the others from 30 to 70 tons. There was a seventh American schooner lying here, of 106 tons, the Ripley of Eastport, employed in a very different pursuit. She carried the celebrated Mr. Audubon, the naturalist, accompanied by several young men, lovers of science; two of them, I believe, medical students of Boston. These besides assisting Mr. Audubon in shooting and preserving specimens of birds, attend to botany, zoology, and mineralogy; in short they collect everything. But the chief object of the expedition is to enable Mr. Audubon to study the habits of the water fowl, with which the coast of Labrador abounds, and to make drawings of them for his magnificent and splendid work upon the birds of America, which is in progress of publication. Soon after we anchored I was informed of the presence of Mr. Audubon by his sending a polite note on board with his card. I received him on board the Gulnare, and we were struck with his gentlemanly manners, and the extent of his information; the first impression that he was a very superior person has not been changed since. I returned his visit on the following day, and he kindly shewed us his drawings; we found him in the act of painting a gannet. The birds are all painted large as life, and never did I see anything more beautiful or true to nature. Not only the difficult iridescent colours of the necks of many of these birds; but even the expression of the eye is preserved. I look upon our meeting with a party* on this wild coast, devoted to *This accidental meeting between Captain Bayfield and the celebrated American naturalist was thus alluded to in a New York paper. "The Editors of the New York Gazette have been favoured with the following extract of a letter from Mr. Audubon, dated "Great Macatine Harbour, Coast of Labrador, or Bay de Portage, July 23, 1833;-Ther. 50. "Our voyage from Eastport was as favourable a one as we could possibly have wished, for in eleven days we landed on this coast, exclusive of our visit to the Magdaline Islands, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, which we did previously. Our first landing was (on this coast) at Mount Jolly, where we found seven American cod fishermen, and two from Nova Scotia. A few days afterwards, the British schooner Gulnare came and anchored near us. We found Captain Bayfield, R.N., and Dr. W. Kelley and others on board, not only polite, but truly kind to us. I will not now attempt to say a word about the country we are in; it is unlike anything that I have ever seen before. We are, thank God, so far, all well, and have been so since we left the United States. Our vessel proves a fine sailer and a staunch one; our captain first rate, active, industrious, and pleasing in his manners; our young gentlemen are all pleased and delighted together, and thus far I am pleased with the charge I have taken upon me of them. "The information I have gained connected with, and relative to my work I believe unprecedented, although I have found only two new species, a Furigille and a Pasus, and completed but seventeen drawings. I feel quite satisfied. We have, however, been deceived as to the quantity of birds said to be here. Birds are more rare than even on the St John's River of Florida, with the exception of a few species, of which there are thousands to be seen on the outer Sea Isles. We have scarcely passed a day without constant fire. We have snow in all our rambles on the north side of rocks and hills, mosquoitos and cariboo flies in thousands, a growth of vegetation that would astonish any English gardener, and yet not a cube of soil apparently. Granite rocks and mosses of many species. I have made a drawing of a pair of willow grouses, with a covey of young. I will hereafter give you some faint idea of the exterior or superficial aspect of this country. I have a cargo of yams for my worthy friend John Beekman. I have also eggs. We are bound to Bradore, as soon as the wind will permit, about 100 miles north-east of us; but we are told there are immense fields of ice in that region. If nothing unforeseen occurs, we shall be on our passage homeward by the 1st or 10th of September. My son and the young gentlemen are now out scrambling over the mountains. Our collection of plants will be agreeable to you and others. The beds of mosses soft as velvet, as rich as colouring can be—we often sink into it up to our knees;-but more of these things at a future time. I send this by the Angelica to Quebec, from whence I hope it will find its way to you." |