In the Wake of the Sea-Serpents

Description

When On the Track of Unknown Animals was published by Hill and Wang in 1959, its author, Dr. Bernard Heuvelmans, was praised by scientists and reviewers all over the world. Now, after ten years of research, Dr. Heuvelmans does for the sea-serpent what he so convincingly did for unknown land animals. Like the Abominable Snowman (of which Dr. Heuvelmans wrote in On the Track), sea-serpents have on the one hand been ridiculed by skeptics and on the other made the subject of fantastic speculations. There is only one way to settle the question of the sea-serpents’ existence: examine the evidence. And for this task no one is better qualified than Dr. Heuvelmans. His thoroughgoing investigations of over five hundred reported sightings—they come from the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans and span the years 1639 to 1965—of animals thought to be sea-serpents are models of scientific probing and precision, which leave the reader convinced that sea-serpents do in fact exist. Heuvelmans quite willingly calls a hoax a hoax, rejects the doubtful, and accepts only that which can be proved. He has been able to pin down seven distinct types of sea-serpents. Their “convenient informal” names are Long-Necked, Merhorse, Many-Humped, Many-Finned, Super-Otter, Super-Eel, and Marine-Saurian. The book concludes with chronologies of sightings, strandings, and captures. This translation by Richard Garnett (who also translated On the Track) from Le Grand Serpent de Mer includes a condensed version of Dr. Heuvelmans’ book on the giant squid. Cover About the Book Title page Copyright April 1969 Dedication CONTENTS Plates Illustrations in the Text Acknowledgments Note I - To the Incredulous Reader 2 - The Kraken and. the Giant Squid 3 - The Age of Terror (From Antiquity to the Middle Ages) 4 - The Luckless Bishops (Scandinavia, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries) 5 - The Stronsa Beast, 1808 (And Other Misleading Carcases) 6 - Science Accepts but Ignorance Rejects (American Period, 1817-1847) 7 - The Daedalus’s Prehistoric Saurian (Beginning of the British Period, 1848) 8 - Her Majesty’s Sea-Serpents (British Period, Part One, 1848-1870) 9 - Showing the Flag(British Period, Part Two, 1871-1891) 10 - Dr Oudemans’s Enormous Mammal (Dutch Interlude, 1892) I11 - Taken Seriously at Last (The Great International Era, 1892-1914') 12 - Victim of Man’s Battles (Through Two Wars, 1914-1943) 13 - Under a Cloud (The Atomic Age, 1946-1966) 14 - Disentangled and Classified at Last Chronological Table of Sightings Chronological Table of Strandings and Captures Bibliography Index Plates About the Author Back Cover