Library of Cryptozoology

The monster taken at Fortune Bay was still unidentified two days after it was killed in a 48-hour battle against fishermen's guns and harpoons, and was lying lashed to Capt. Earl Noble's motor vessel Golda awaiting an offer of purchase. If no museum or institution buys the huge carcass, its nine-inch deep coat of fat will be fried into oil. The exact length of the creature is 34 feet. It is finless, but has several pairs of four-foot long flippers. Its tail is nine feet in extreme width; while the mouth, three feet, eight inches across, extends nine feet from the tip of the snouth. The immense fish differs greatly from any whales frequenting Newfoundland waters, and does not fit descriptions of any known fish.

The account given in the Union yesterday of a mammoth sea monster seen by Capt. Charlesworth, of the yacht Cygnet, and the venerable Dr. Squills of this city, last Tuesday in a cove on the Peninsula, created considerable commotion, especially among the members of the Academy of Sciences. The Academy held a special meeting, and the UNION’s account was read by the Secretary. Several members spoke of the serpent-fish, and all confessed themselves unable to classify it with any of the known families of the great deep. When they adjourned they all went sailing over to the Peninsula, in hope to obtain a glimpse of the wonderful visitor to our harbor. Every sailing and row boat on the bay was out with parties all day long, the occupants being anxious to obtain a glance at the serpent-fish, but keeping a respectful distance from the cove where he was seen. Charlie Kauffman, of this city, and Pete Thompson, of Los Angeles, who happens to be here visiting, went prospecting for sights on the Bay ...

A party consisting of Messrs. E.A. Veazie, J.M. Spencer and Dr. Squills went out sailing on the yacht Cygnet (formerly Pilot boat No. 2), Captain George Charlesworth yesterday morning and returned about one o'clock P.M. From them our reporter has obtained the following particulars of a remarkable sea monster which was seen by Capt. Charlesworth in a cove on the Peninsula almost opposite this city. After sailing up to the end of the Peninsula and back as far as this cove, the yacht was brought to an anchor and the parting, taking their three shot guns, when off to the sore in the skiff. It was agreed upon that Messrs. Veazie and Spencer should remain concealed at that point until Capt. Charlesworth and Dr. Spills should go up and around the cove in search of curlews. These birds, which are considered very choice game, have been shot in considerable quantities at this place, and by keeping them flying back and forth across the cove the party expected to bag several messes. At the upp...

The good people of Nahant and other eastern localities can no longer boast of the sole proprietorship of a great "sea serpent." We have one on the California coast, and he was lately seen in St. Simeon Bay, San Luis Obispo county, about two miles from the shore. At that distance he appeared to be about 80 feet in length. He carried his head high out of water, the sea being perfectly smooth, travelled swiftly, and in half an hour after first being seen, disappeared at sea. He was seen by at least a half dozen gentlemen and ladies, all of whom had a good view of the monster.

We have so often heard of a sea serpent being in existence in the Atlantic Ocean, we had hoped he would pay a visit to the Pacific Ocean, so that we might make an item, and not place reliability in the papers of the East as to his existence, until he was seen on this side. Such seems to have been the case; for some passengers on board the British barque Bolina, from Valparaiso, arrived yesterday [at San Francisco], report that they actually saw a sea serpent on the 3d of May, in lat. 25 N., lon. 130, near Douglass Reef [Okinotorishima]. He was about half a mile from the vessel, and measured about one hundred and seventy feet in length.

It is stated that the master of a schooner recently arrived reports having seen a sea monster a few degrees to the eastward of the Sandwich Islands [Hawaiian Islands]. It is represented to have been not less than eighty feet long, with a head like that of a common water snake, and provided with huge fins, with which it proceeded through the water with incredible speed. The creature passed across the bows of the vessel, and was last seen about a mile to windward. It appeared above the water several times in the course of ten minutes.

The 16th I went out in a canoe which Captain Kendrick purchased of the natives and made me a present of shooting I left the ship [Columbia] early with an intention of seeing the village of Okerminna [in Clayoquot Sound] it was noon before I arrived at Inistuck ... before which is a clever snug cove in which there were many geese, ducks and teal sporting here I landed in order to get a shot at them one of the people that was with me who also landed in creeping along the edge of the bush saw an animal which I conceiv'd to be an alligator the man was so agitated as not to be able to give any description of what he had seen than that it was a huge animal very long with a large mouth and teeth the neck about as thick as his thigh and so tapered of to the tail with a black back and light yellow belly I immediately repaired to the place where this animal had been seen but could not get a sight of him from this circumstance I was induced to think it was only a burnt log (of which there are...