I have a fondness for the offbeat, anomalous and forgotten gems of history. I found the image above while browsing The Public Domain Review, a place that gathers to itself just this sort of cultural flotsam and jetsam. The men in the picture are measuring a footprint left behind by some kind of bizarre sea creature. Read about this forgotten event in the “natural” history of New England: The Nantucket Sea Serpent Hoax.

Image housed at Flickr, in conjunction with the Nantucket Historical Association.