120 TORPEDO. 



gentleman's experiments on tlie vital properties , of this fish; and 

 ■we shall be indebted to his narrative and explanation for a large 

 portion of what we shall relate of its early history; but with 

 a larger reference to several other authors who have treated 

 upon it. The first writer mentioned by Pringle is Hippocrates, 

 who, however, only notices it as an article of food; although, 

 as has been justly remarked, by calling it by its significant 

 name, it is shewn that he could not have been unacquainted 

 with its reputation of possessing singular powers. Plato had a 

 like general knowledge of its nature; as is proved by a com- 

 parison he causes Menon to make, of his master Socrates to 

 this fish. Aristotle, whose study of nature had drawn him farther 

 than any other into an acquaintance with the habits of living 

 beings, and the services their properties secured to themselves, 

 informs us of its habit of lying hid, and employing its peculiar 

 powers for the purpose of benumbing such fishes as might 

 wander near it, and thus satisfying the cravings of appetite. 

 It is probable, from his well-known disposition to inquire into 

 the nature of whatever of interest might fall in his way, that 

 himself had examined this fish, although perhaps only after 

 death; and he must have felt assured from his inquiries, that 

 it truly possessed the properties ascribed to it; for he remarks 

 as something worthy of notice, that so active a fish as the 

 Mullet had been found in the stomach of so sluggish a creature 

 as the Narke. But this eminent philosopher does not appear 

 to have known, or perhaps fully credited, some of the particular 

 facts reported of it; and it was his successor, Theophrastus, 

 who ascertained that the fish was able, when touched by a 

 rod or staff, to diffuse its influence to an object at some distance 

 from itself. This we learn from Athenaeus, who informs us 

 also that Diphilius, of Laodicea, discovered the important fact, 

 doubted by others, that the powers of the creature proceeded 

 only from a limited portion of its body; to which Hero of 

 Alexandria added the observation that metals were capable of 

 conveying the influence in the same manner as a rod or staff, 

 Plutarch should be mentioned next to Hero, since, although 

 probably he did not originally discover it, he is the first to 

 mention the circumstance — that the numbing influence had been 

 known to pass through a net to the arms of the fisherman; and he 

 affirms, what is more fully mentioned by ^lian and other writers 



