"Unfortunately, the estimated dimensions of this creature are not given.
"That negative evidence alone is an unsafe basis for argument against the existence of unknown animals, the following illustrations will show:--
"During the deep-sea dredgings of H.M.S. _Lightning_, _Porcupine_, and _Challenger_, many new species of mollusca and others, which had been supposed to have been extinct ever since the Chalk, were brought to light; and by the deep-sea trawlings of the last-mentioned ship there have been brought up from great depths fishes of unknown species, and which could not exist near the surface, owing to the distention and rupture of their air-bladder when removed from the pressure of deep water.
"Mr. Gosse mentions that the ship in which he made the voyage to Jamaica was surrounded in the North Atlantic, for seventeen continuous hours, by a troop of whales of large size, of an undescribed species, which on no other occasion has fallen under scientific observation. Unique specimens of other Cetaceans are also recorded.
"We have evidence, to which attention has been directed by Mr. A. D. Bartlett, that 'even on land there exists at least one of the largest mammals, probably in thousands, of which only one individual has been brought to notice, namely, the hairy-eared, two-horned rhinoceros (_R. Lasiotis_), now in the Zoological Gardens, London. It was captured in 1868, at Chittagong, in India, where for years collectors and naturalists have worked and published lists of the animals met with, and yet no knowledge of this great beast was ever before obtained, nor is there any portion of one in any museum. It remains unique.
"I have arrived at the following conclusions: 1. That without straining resemblances, or casting a doubt upon narratives not proved to be erroneous, the various appearances of the supposed 'great sea-serpent' may now be nearly all accounted for by the forms and habits of known animals; especially if we admit, as proposed by Dr. Andrew Wilson, that some of them, including the marine snakes, may, like the cuttles, attain to extraordinary size. 2. That to assume that naturalists have perfect cognisance of every existing marine animal of large size, would be quite unwarrantable. It appears to me more than probable that many marine animals, unknown to science, and some of them of gigantic size, may have their ordinary habitat in the sea, and only occasionally come to the surface; and I think it not impossible that amongst them may be marine snakes of greater dimensions than we are aware of, and even a creature having close affinities with the old sea-reptiles whose fossil skeletons tell of their magnitude and abundance in past ages.