The much discussed question as to whether the sea serpent is a reality or not is as much of a problem today as it ever was. Scientists as a whole confidently state that no such monster does or can exist. On the other hand, every now and then persons of more or less credibility report personal sight of such creatures, and in the main their descriptions agree. The San Francisco Examiner prints an interesting contribution to the discussion from the pen of Peter Hansen, a Norwegian boatman on Puget sound. Hansen is an old sailor of more than average intelligence, and his reliability is vouched for by his neighbors at Quartermaster, Wash. Here is his story:
    On Feb. 24 I was in my boat towing a small raft of cedar logs from the opposite shore to my ranch. The bay, or rather strait, is about three miles wide here, and I was within half a mile of the west shore, upon which stands my cabin. The raft I had in tow contained six newly cut logs. Upon the middle of the raft I had built a small platform of cedar shakes, and on this platform were my tools—a double bitted chopping ax, a broadax and a loaded double barreled shotgun. My Newfoundland dog was with me in the boat, standing high up in the bow, barking at the ducks and gulls.
    Carl had just finished a prolonged fit of barking at the ducks when he suddenly fetched such an unusual growl of anger that I looked around to see what the matter could be. The sight that met my gaze paralyzed me, and the oars dropped from my hands. On my port quarter, about three-fourths of a mile distant, there loomed the swaying head and neck of some monster unlike anything I had ever seen or dreamed of in all my life, and I have been a seaman for more than 40 years and visited every part of the navigable globe.
    When first seen, the creature was making straight across the bay, with his head 10 feet in the air; but, as it seems, having heard Carl’s defiant and piercing cries, he changed his course and swam directly toward us with fearful velocity, the mighty throes of his extended body emitting a sound not unlike that caused by the pounding of a sidewheel steamer’s paddles.
    My first impulse was to reach my trusty shotgun, cartridge belt and hatchet. I plunged into the sea and swam for the raft, about 20 yards astern, calling to my dog to follow me. But I miscalculated the speed of the great snake, for while yet several yards from the raft I heard a howl of agony from my brave Carl. Looking over my shoulder, I instinctively fetched a shriek of horror and despair.
    While I had been swimming 15 yards the snake had glided more than half a mile and pounced upon Carl. The dog weighed between 75 and 80 pounds, and his green eyed captor was holding him in his mouth 20 feet in the air. I do not know how I reached the raft, but in less time than it takes to record it I had seized the gun and sent a heavy charge of buckshot into the creature’s belly about where it emerged from the water. A visible tremor passed through his body, his head fell, and bringing Carl down with frightful velocity the poor dog was hurled against the side of the boat with a force that killed him instantly.
    It now appeared that my shot had not only wounded the reptile, but it had angered him to rather a dangerous and alarming degree. Instantly his head was again on high, deafening hissings came from his throat, and the waters for a hundred feet seaward were churned into foam by the horrid writhings of his body.
    Again I raised my gun and discharged the other barrel. If my first shot had angered him, my second shot worked him into a frenzy that knew no bounds. Throwing back his great hooded head in true serpentine style, he began to strike at the boat. At one time, fastening his jaws upon the starboard gunwale, he wrenched off a piece of solid timber 5 feet long and 2 inches thick as easily apparently as a man would bite into the thin end of a shingle. Throwing his body into a series of great, vertical coils 8 feet in diameter, he completely encircled the boat, and with one constriction crushed it into a shapeless mass.
    After crushing the boat the serpent did not immediately uncoil himself, but lay some minutes with the fragments still in his embrace, while his ever restless tall whipped the surface of the sea.
    Curiously enough, in one of its gyrations the end of the tail fell upon my raft, and with what must have been superhuman agility I seized my broadax and with one blow cut off five feet of the wiggling end. I was esteeming this a most valuable prize, but before I could secure it the slimy mass wriggled into the water and was lost.
    From this time the great reptile evidently began to weaken from the loss of blood, which was pouring in streams from his head and the wound given him by the broadax. Slowly regaining his normal position in the water, the creature withdrew toward the open sea and was soon out of sight.
    When I first saw him swimming squarely abreast of me, I should judge that from the elevated head to where the sea was lashed by the end of his tail the distance was 150 feet. The great flattened head was hooded like that of an East India cobra, and from the tip of the nose to the insertion of the neck would have measured perhaps 8 feet. The head was fully 2½ feet wide, but appeared to be deficient in vertical depth. The eyes were set just forward of the hooded appendage and were as large as the eyes of an ox. There were no indications of a dorsal fin or rudimental feet, as have been attributed by some former observers to the so called sea serpent.
    The dog’s body drifted ashore after a few hours, and from the condition of the carcass it was apparent that the reptile was not venomous.

From— Little Falls Weekly Transcript. (Little Falls, Morrison Co., Minn.), 11 May 1894. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.