USES OF ELECTRIC APPARATUS OF TORPEDO. 229 



My own idea is that the electric power is given to 

 the fish to kill its prey. I can see no other way that 

 the poor thing has to procure its living. The teeth of 

 the torpedo are exceedingly small, and certainly not 

 suited to the capture of any vigorous or lively prey ; the 

 appearance of the fish is that of a skulking rascal ; his 

 coat is almost mud colour. He is probably too lazy to 

 hunt after his own food, and doubtlesfe remains half 

 asleep in the mud till something worth eating walks 

 upon him or swims over him, he then "lets fly," and 

 gets his dinner without much difficulty. 



Finally, it is a most interesting and curious thought, 

 that the marvellous fluid electricity, which we human 

 beings call into existence by means of complicated 

 arrangements of acids and metals, should be generated 

 by an animal structure composed of the most delicate 

 nerve fibres and tissue ; this arrangement, moreover, 

 being found in the back of a fish which lives in the 

 depths of the sea. We pride ourselves much upon our 

 telegraph across the bottom of the Atlantic, little think- 

 ing that living and moving electric batteries have been 

 in existence for hundreds of years before electricity was 

 ever discovered, much less applied to purposes of social 

 economy. 



The structure of the torpedo is an answer to those 

 who dispute the wisdom and design exhibited in created 

 things. How is it possible that any number of years, 

 or any other causes, could have produced an electrical 

 apparatus so exceedingly perfect and so complicated in 

 itself that, although man may investigate its ultimate 

 structure, yet he is perfectly ignorant of its operations? 

 No ! the same great Power that orders the lightning to 

 shine from east to west in the wide heavens, or the 

 aurora borealis to illuminate the sky of the ice-bound 



