The eye was of the size of the Seal's
In September 1808, a local man was fishing off the coast of Orkney when he spotted a bunch of birds feasting on an animal corpse on the rocks. He saw what looked like a giant sea serpent, but couldn't get close enough to be sure. Ten days later, a gale washed the corpse onto the Stronsay beach, where it was closely examined and measured by local men. The beast quickly gained notoriety--but it also quickly decomposed. The four men who examined it closely were taken to Kirkwall (Orkney's main city) to give sworn testimony to the magistrate about what they'd seen. The 1860 Naturalist's Library sums up the testimony as follows: It measured fifty-six feet in length and twelve in circumference. The head was small, not being a foot in length, from the snout to the first vertebre; the neck was slender, extending to the length of fifteen feet. All the accounts agree in assigning it blow holes, though they differ as to their precise situation. On the shoulders something like a b...