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siting their families and friends, they went in procession to the chapel of St Thomas, and offered up their prayers of gratitude.

We shall now terminate our investigation of the history of this extraordinary animal. The different authorities which have been quoted, are, we trust, sufficient to establish the existence of an enormous inhabitant of the deep, possessed of characters which in a remarkable degree distinguish it from every creature with which we are at all familiar; and the agreement which may be observed in its descriptions, when compared with those of the celebrated kraken, is sufficiently obvious to warrant the inference which we are now prepared to draw, that the great Norwegian animal so named, is to be considered not as a wild and groundless chimera, but as either identical with, or nearly allied to, this colossal cuttle-fish. It must be confessed, that many of the accounts to which we have referred, if considered singly, are much too vague and indefinite to form the foundation of any opinion; but it is the general import and tendency of the whole combined, which should be considered. In this view, it would be inconsistent with the spirit of an enlightened philosophy, to reject as spurious the history of an animal, the existence of which is rendered so probable, by evidence deduced from the prevailing belief of different tribes of mankind, whose opinions, it is evident, could not have been influenced or affected by the traditions of each other, but must have resulted from the occasional appearances of the monster itself in different quarters of our globe. That great exaggeration pervades the generality of these accounts is perfectly evident; but it is equally clear, that in all the most striking and characteristic properties, there is a very particular, and, indeed, surprising coincidence. Thus the great length and dangerous power of the arms or branches, and the peculiar odour exhaled from the body of the animal, were well known both to the Romans and the Scandinavian fisherman, and the acetabula or suckers, are described nearly in the same words by Pliny, and the navigators who collected their accounts from the untutored Indians.

It is probable, that the animal of the North Sea is not specifically the same as that of the Indian or Atlantic ocean, though their general characters induce us to believe that they are closely allied. Several well known species of cuttle-fish, though infinitely less, agree with these enormous animals in the nature of their long and numerous tentacula, and more particularly in the pleasant odour which emanates from their bodies. One of these, called the eight-armed cuttle-fish, appears almost to emulate the ferocity of the gigantic species. Its arms are of great extent, and furnished with a double row of cups, or suckers. When full grown, it is a fierce and dangerous animal, and so strong, that it is extremely hazardous to attack it without caution. Such is the ferocity with which it is said to defend itself, that the strongest mastiff can hardly subdue it without a long and doubtful contest, and it has even been known to attack a person while swimming, by fastening itself with violent force round his body and limbs.^[1]

The unforeseen length to which it has been found necessary to extend this part of our communication, must prevent our entering at present into an examination of those statements and traditions which constitute the history of the great sea serpent. The modern