I need scarcely point out how utterly irreconcileable is the proverbially smooth, gliding motion of a serpent, with the supposition of its passage through the water causing such frictional disturbance that "white foam appeared before it, and at the side, which stretched out several fathoms," and of "the water boiling around it on both sides of it." The cuttle is the only animal that I know of that would cause this by the effluent current from its "syphon tube." I have seen a deeply laden ship push in front of her a vast hillock of water, which fell off on each side in foam as it was parted by her bow; but that was of man's construction. Nature builds on better lines. No swimming creature has such unnecessary friction to overcome. Even the seemingly unwieldy body of a porpoise enters and passes through the water without a splash, and nothing can be more easy and graceful than the feathering action of the flippers of the awkward-looking turtle.
We now come to an incident which, from the character of those who witnessed it, immediately commanded attention, and excited popular curiosity. In the _Times_ of the 9th of October, 1848, appeared a paragraph stating that a sea-serpent had been met with by the _Dædalus_ frigate, on her homeward voyage from the East Indies. The Admiralty immediately inquired of her commander, Captain M'Quhæ, as to the truth of the report; and his official reply, as follows, addressed to Admiral Sir W. H. Gage, G.C.H., Devonport, was printed in the _Times_ of the 13th of October, 1848.
"H.M.S. _Dædalus_, Hamoaze, October 11th, 1848.
"Sir,--In reply to your letter of this date, requiring information as to the truth of the statement published in the _Times_ newspaper, of a sea-serpent of extraordinary dimensions having been seen from H.M.S. _Dædalus_, under my command, on her passage from the East Indies, I have the honour to acquaint you, for the information of my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, that at 5 o'clock P.M. on the 6th of Aug. last, in lat. 24° 44' S. and long. 9° 22' E., the weather dark and cloudy, wind fresh from the N.W. with a long ocean swell from the W., the ship on the port tack, head being N.E. by N., something very unusual was seen by Mr. Sartoris, midshipman, rapidly approaching the ship from before the beam. The circumstance was immediately reported by him to the officer of the watch, Lieut. Edgar Drummond, with whom and Mr. Wm. Barrett, the Master, I was at the time walking the quarter-deck. The ship's company were at supper. On our attention being called to the object it was discovered to be an enormous serpent, with head and shoulders kept about four feet constantly above the surface of the sea, and, as nearly as we could approximate by comparing it with the length of what our main-topsail yard would show in the water, there was at the very least sixty feet of the animal _à fleur d'eau_, no portion of which was, to our perception, used in propelling it through the water, either by vertical or horizontal undulation. It passed rapidly, but so close under our lee quarter that had it been a man of my acquaintance I should easily have recognised his features with the naked eye; and it did not, either in approaching the ship or after it had passed our wake, deviate in the slightest degree from its course to the S.W., which it held on at the pace of from twelve to fifteen miles per hour, apparently on some determined purpose.