Note 32 — THE GREAT SEA SERPENT.

It must be noted, however, that in almost every case, except that of the Osborne, the paddles were supposed, not seen, and were invented to account for an animal of great length progressing at the surface of the water at the rate of twelve to fifteen miles an hour without its being possible to perceive, upon the closest and most attentive inspection, any undulatory movement to which its rapid advance could be ascribed. As the great calamaries were unknown, their mode of swift retrograde motion, by means of an outflowing current of water, was of course unsuspected.