ELECTRIC ORGANS OF FISHES. 



353 



which they are situated, fig. 233, h. These membranes are about 

 half a line apart at their outer borders ; but, as they pass from 

 the skin towards their inner attachments, they approach one 



233 



Vertical transverse section, Gymnotus, natural size. ccxv. 



another. They are intersected transversely by more delicate 

 vertical plates, extending from the skin to the median aponeu- 

 rosis, and coextensive in length with the breadth of the septa 

 between which they are placed. Hunter counted about 240 of 

 these plates in a single inch of length of the horizontal mem- 

 brane. 1 He compares those stronger membranes to the aponeu- 

 rotic walls of the prisms of the Torpedo, and the inter- 

 secting delicate plates to the partitions of the prisms : and if 

 we admit the analogy of these plates, and of those of the Tor- 

 pedo, to the plates of the voltaic pile, we perceive that, in the 



VOL. I. 



LXXX. 



A A 



