Prof, Marianini on the Klectric Shock 



succeeded it. I shall consider the time and pains which I have 

 bestowed on the investigation of this very curious point well 

 spent, if I shall be thought to have succeeded in reviving an 

 opinion held long by some of the best observers, and affording 

 some geological illustrations of importance connected with the 

 apparent level of the sea, — illustrations extending we have seen 

 to the early period of the second century before our era, and 

 connected with some of the most remarkable natural convul- 

 sions of the middle ages. To refute the hypotheses of others 

 on an obscure subject has always been an easy and a thank- 

 less task ; but to unite this vvith the support of an opinion 

 calculated to throw light upon the physical history of distant 

 countries or of remote ages, and to give it the advantage of 

 that ordeal which the researches of learned men and the test 

 of experience can alone produce, by answering the objections 

 to which these have given rise, is to serve the cause of truth, 

 and add a new fact towards the promotion of our acquaintance 

 with the material world. " Opinionum commenta delet dies, 

 naturae judicia confirmat." 



Art. X. — On the Shock experienced by Animals when they 

 cease to form part of an Electric Circuit. By Dr Ex. 

 Mariani^ji, Professor of Natural Philosophy at Venice. 



The very interesting memoir of which we propose to give a 

 brief abstract, was addressed in the form of a letter to the aca- 

 demy of Roveredo in November 1827. An extract from it was 

 published in the Tyrolese Messenger on the 15th January 

 1828, and from this it has been translated and inserted in the 

 Ann. de Chim. vol. xl. p. 225 — 256. The general object 

 which the author had in view, and the general results of his 

 experiments, will form the subject of this notice. 



" In repeating the first experiments by which Volta demon- 

 strated that the frog is only passive in the contractions which 

 it experiences when it forms part of the arc of communication 

 established between two heterogeneous metals placed in con- 

 tact, it is often observed that the same contractions are repeated 



