Caption

Copperplate engraving of Egede's great sea monster. The Naturalist's Library Sir William Jardine (publisher) Wm. Lizars (principal engraver). London & Edinburgh. Hans Egede (a lutheran missionary) wrote that on the 6 July 1734 his ship was off the Greenland coast. Those on board that day "saw a most terrible creature, resembling nothing they saw before. The monster lifted its head so high that it seemed to be higher than the crow's nest on the mainmast. The head was small and the body short and wrinkled. The unknown creature was using giant fins which propelled it through the water. Later the sailors saw its tail as well. The monster was longer than our whole ship".