Research source

Having examined all the descriptions and figures of the Great Sea-Serpent published from 1500 A

Date of account: Late nineteenth-century survey
Source: The great sea-serpent: an historical and critical treatise
Reference: The great sea-serpent: an historical and critical treatise · selected passage 147
Rights: public_domain
Language: English edition of a European scholarly compilation
Translation: English edition of A. C. Oudemans's historical survey
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

Published source text

Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.

Source passage

Source text · mention only

Having examined all the descriptions and figures of the Great Sea-Serpent published from 1500 A. D. up to this day, we come to the conclusion, as we have already stated above, that some of the so-called sea-serpents were fishes of slender form, others were cuttles of extraordinary dimensions (_Cephalopoda Decapoda Chondrophora_). In all these cases it is not impossible, and sometimes not difficult for a zoologist, who is familiar with these creatures and their habits, to explain those observations, but the greater part of the accounts of Great Sea-Serpents do _not_ agree with the well-known shape of sea-weeds and cuttles, _nor_ with the habits of porpoises. Mr. LEE tries a few times to identify the Sea-Serpent with these kinds of animals, but all who saw the sea-serpent moving with vertical undulations, and figured it thus, knew the habits of those animals, and some of them testified, that it could not have been porpoises, which they knew well enough to be sure of it.

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

This is a historical compilation of unusual-animal reports and argument. Witness testimony, repetition between publications and the author's zoological assumptions all affect independence and reliability.

Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

Lattice compares morphology, behaviour and setting while keeping misidentification, folklore, exaggeration, error and known animals available as alternatives.

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