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1A SHIFTING REEF The year 1866 was signalised by a remarkable incident, a mysterious and puzzling phenomenon, which
2doubtless no one has yet forgotten. Not to mention rumours which agitated the maritime population and excited the public
3mind, even in the interior of continents, seafaring men were particularly excited. Merchants, common sailors, captains
4of vessels, skippers, both of Europe and America, naval officers of all countries, and the Governments of several states
5on the two continents, were deeply interested in the matter. For some time past, vessels had been met by "an enormous
6thing," a long object, spindle-shaped, occasionally phosphorescent, and infinitely larger and more rapid in its
7movements than a whale. The facts relating to this apparition (entered in various log-books) agreed in most respects as
8to the shape of the object or creature in question, the untiring rapidity of its movements, its surprising power of
9locomotion, and the peculiar life with which it seemed endowed. If it was a cetacean, it surpassed in size all those
10hitherto classified in science. Taking into consideration the mean of observations made at divers times,--rejecting the
11timid estimate of those who assigned to this object a length of two hundred feet, equally with the exaggerated opinions
12which set it down as a mile in width and three in length,--we might fairly conclude that this mysterious being surpassed
13greatly all dimensions admitted by the ichthyologists of the day, if it existed at all. And that it did exist was an
14undeniable fact; and, with that tendency which disposes the human mind in favour of the marvellous, we can understand
15the excitement produced in the entire world by this supernatural apparition. As to classing it in the list of fables,
16the idea was out of the question. On the 20th of July, 1866, the steamer Governor Higginson, of the Calcutta and Burnach
17Steam Navigation Company, had met this moving mass five miles off the east coast of Australia. Captain Baker thought at
18first that he was in the presence of an unknown sandbank; he even prepared to determine its exact position, when two
19columns of water, projected by the inexplicable object, shot with a hissing noise a hundred and fifty feet up into the
20air. Now, unless the sandbank had been submitted to the intermittent eruption of a geyser, the Governor Higginson had to
21do neither more nor less than with an aquatic mammal, unknown till then, which threw up from its blow-holes columns of
22water mixed with air and vapour. Similar facts were observed on the 23rd of July in the same year, in the Pacific Ocean,
23by the Columbus, of the West India and Pacific Steam Navigation Company. But this extraordinary cetaceous creature could
24transport itself from one place to another with surprising velocity; as, in an interval of three days, the Governor
25Higginson and the Columbus had observed it at two different points of the chart, separated by a distance of more than
26seven hundred nautical leagues. Fifteen days later, two thousand miles farther off, the Helvetia, of the
27Compagnie-Nationale, and the Shannon, of the Royal Mail Steamship Company, sailing to windward in that portion of the
28Atlantic lying between the United States and Europe, respectively signalled the monster to each other in 42° 15′ N. lat.
29and 60° 35′ W. long. In these simultaneous observations they thought themselves justified in estimating the minimum
30length of the mammal at more than three hundred and fifty feet, as the Shannon and Helvetia were of smaller dimensions
31than it, though they measured three hundred feet over all. Now the largest whales, those which frequent those parts of
32the sea round the Aleutian, Kulammak, and Umgullich islands, have never exceeded the length of sixty yards, if they
33attain that. These reports arriving one after the other, with fresh observations made on board the transatlantic ship
34Pereire, a collision which occurred between the Etna of the Inman line and the monster, a procès verbal directed by the
35officers of the French frigate Normandie, a very accurate survey made by the staff of Commodore Fitz-James on board the
36Lord Clyde, greatly influenced public opinion. Light-thinking people jested upon the phenomenon, but grave practical
37countries, such as England, America, and Germany, treated the matter more seriously. In every place of great resort the
38monster was the fashion. They sang of it in the cafés, ridiculed it in the papers, and represented it on the stage. All
39kinds of stories were circulated regarding it. There appeared in the papers caricatures of every gigantic and imaginary
40creature, from the white whale, the terrible "Moby Dick" of hyperborean regions, to the immense kraken whose tentacles
41could entangle a ship of five hundred tons, and hurry it into the abyss of the ocean. The legends of ancient times were
42even resuscitated, and the opinions of Aristotle and Pliny revived, who admitted the existence of these monsters, as
43well as the Norwegian tales of Bishop Pontoppidan, the accounts of Paul Heggede, and, last of all, the reports of Mr.
44Harrington (whose good faith no one could suspect), who affirmed that, being on board the Castillan, in 1857, he had
45seen this enormous serpent, which had never until that time frequented any other seas but those of the ancient
46"Constitutionnel." Then burst forth the interminable controversy between the credulous and the incredulous in the
47societies of savants and the scientific journals. "The question of the monster" inflamed all minds. Editors of
48scientific journals, quarrelling with believers in the supernatural, spilled seas of ink during this memorable campaign,
49some even drawing blood; for, from the sea-serpent they came to direct personalities. For six months war was waged with
50various fortune in the leading articles of the Geographical Institution of Brazil, the Royal Academy of Science of
51Berlin, the British Association, the Smithsonian Institution of Washington, in the discussions of the "Indian
52Archipelago," of the Cosmos of the Abbé Moigno, in the Mittheilungen of Petermann, in the scientific chronicles of the
53great journals of France and other countries. The cheaper journals replied keenly and with inexhaustible zest. These
54satirical writers parodied a remark of Linnæus, quoted by the adversaries of the monster, maintaining "that nature did
55not make fools," and adjured their contemporaries not to give the lie to nature, by admitting the existence of krakens,
56sea-serpents, "Moby Dicks," and other lucubrations of delirious sailors. At length an article in a well-known satirical
57journal by a favourite contributor, the chief of the staff, settled the monster, like Hippolytus, giving it the
58death-blow amidst an universal burst of laughter. Wit had conquered science. During the first months of the year 1867
59the question seemed buried, never to revive, when new facts were brought before the public. It was then no longer a
60scientific problem to be solved, but a real danger seriously to be avoided. The question took quite another shape. The
61monster became a small island, a rock, a reef, but a reef of indefinite and shifting proportions. On the 5th of March,
621867, the Moravian, of the Montreal Ocean Company, finding herself during the night in 27° 30′ lat. and 72° 15′ long.,
63struck on her starboard quarter a rock, marked in no chart for that part of the sea. Under the combined efforts of the
64wind and its four hundred horse-power, it was going at the rate of thirteen knots. Had it not been for the superior
65strength of the hull of the Moravian, she would have been broken by the shock and gone down with the 237 passengers she
66was bringing home from Canada. The accident happened about five o'clock in the morning, as the day was breaking. The
67officers of the quarter-deck hurried to the after-part of the vessel. They examined the sea with the most scrupulous
68attention. They saw nothing but a strong eddy about three cables' length distant, as if the surface had been violently
69agitated. The bearings of the place were taken exactly, and the Moravian continued its route without apparent damage.
70Had it struck on a submerged rock, or on an enormous wreck? they could not tell; but on examination of the ship's bottom
71when undergoing repairs, it was found that part of her keel was broken. This fact, so grave in itself, might perhaps
72have been forgotten like many others if, three weeks after, it had not been re-enacted under similar circumstances. But,
73thanks to the nationality of the victim of the shock, thanks to the reputation of the company to which the vessel
74belonged, the circumstance became extensively circulated. The 13th of April, 1867, the sea being beautiful, the breeze
75favourable, the Scotia, of the Cunard Company's line, found herself in 15° 12′ long. and 45° 37′ lat. She was going at
76the speed of thirteen knots and a half. At seventeen minutes past four in the afternoon, whilst the passengers were
77assembled at lunch in the great saloon, a slight shock was felt on the hull of the Scotia, on her quarter, a little aft
78of the port-paddle.
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