CHONDROPTERYGII. G43 



which a mucus is exuded along the vertebral column. The 

 teeth are very short. The torpedo does not attain the dimen- 

 sions of some of the rays, as it is seldom found exceeding 

 sixty pounds in weight, and the largest on record, as caught 

 on our coast, was four feet long and two and a half wide. 



It is by no means common on our coasts, but is found 

 more abundantly in the Mediterranean, on the western coast 

 of Europe. It is also found in the Persian Gulf, the Indian 

 and Pacific Oceans, about the Cape, and elsewhere. It 

 feeds on small fish, and seems to lie in the mud and sand at 

 the bottom. 



It was little to be expected, a priori, that the electric 

 ether, which, however universally spread, in general is found 

 condensed only by nature in the clouds of the higher regions 

 of the atmosphere, should be capable of an artificial conden- 

 sation, and should, by artificial means, be bottled, as it were, 

 in the Leyden phial ; but still less was it to be expected, that 

 any animal should possess the faculty of condensing this 

 terrific and all-powerful fluid, and of benumbing and sus- 

 pending all the energies of its prey, by the sudden transmis- 

 sion of this subtle matter, of overpowering its victims, and 

 repelling or paralysing its enemies, by a flash of lightning 

 sufficient in strength to subdue, but not to destroy. The 

 identity of the magic power of the torpedo with electricity is, 

 however, sufficiently established, not only by the nature of 

 the effects produced by it on the animal subjected to its in- 

 fluence, but also by the fact, that these effects are to be 

 avoided, and are to be avoided only, by means of a non- 

 conducting medium. 



It appears, indeed, that the organ by which the torpedo 

 produces this condensation of the electric fluid, is more ana- 

 logous to the galvanic battery than to the Leyden jar; but, 

 however this may be, the effect produced is an instantaneous 

 and paralysing commotion in the hand which touches it, and 



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