Pontoppidan was not a fabricator of falsehoods; but, in collecting evidence relating to the -great beasts- living in -the great and wide sea, - was influenced, as he tells us, by -a desire to extend the popular knowledge of the glorious works of a beneficent Creator.- He gave too much credence to contemporary narratives and old traditions of floating islands and sea monsters, and to the superstitious beliefs and exaggerated statements of ignorant fishermen: but if those who ridicule him had lived in his day and amongst his people, they would probably have done the same; for even Linnaeus was...