Manitoba Daily Free Press

Winnipeg, Manitoba

August 28, 1891

THE SEA SERPENT.

An Old Friend Re-appears and is Viewed by Canadian Fishermen.

SHEDIAC, N.B., Aug. 26. — Five reliable fishermen report seeing a sea serpent off Richibacto shore. It was two hundred feet long, about as thick as a man’s body, had a flat shaped head with eyes on the top like a frog. It resembled a snake and sometimes raised its head six feet out of the water, and its body curved like an immense hawser. They were near enough to see scales on its body and were in view of it for an hour.

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Lincoln Evening News

Lincoln, Nebraska

April 4, 1898

An Eighteenth Century Wonder.

An amusing and detailed account of a merman seen in the Atlantic, written apparently in good faith, ends with the following description of the monster, which may possibly have been a seal or a sea lion: “That monster is about eight feet long, his skin is brown and tawny, without any scales, all his motions are like those of men, the eyes of a proportionate size, a little mouth, a large and flat nose, very white teeth, black hair, the chin covered with a mossy beard, a sort of whiskers under the nose, the ears like those of men, [illegible] between the fingers of his hands and feet like those of ducks. In a word, he is a well shaped man. Which is certified to be true by Captain Oliver Morin and John Martin, pilot, and by the whole crew, consisting of two-and-thirty men.” (An article from Brest in the “Memoirs of Trevoux.”) This monster was mentioned in The Gazette of Amsterdam Oct. 12, 1725, where it is said it was seen in the ocean in August of the same year. — Household Words.

Thanks to Jerome Clark for these two items.

Please click on the image for the full-size editorial image.

Thanks to Mia B. Smith, Permissions Coordinator at American Scientist, who informs me the copyright credit for this illustration is Bill Long, 2005.