mere ConlflSl o/conduSIing Suhjlances. 299 



interrupted in any part) the communication Is reftored, and 

 the circle completed in any of the ways before mentioned. 

 One might be furprifed that in this circle the ekaric cur- 

 rent having a free paOage through an uninterrupted mafs of 

 water, that which fills the bafon, Hiould quit this good con- 

 dudor to throw itfelf and purfue its courfe through the body 

 of the perfon who holds his hands immerfed in the fame 

 water, and thus to take a longer paffage. But the furprife 

 will ceafe if we reflea, that living and warm animal fub- 

 ftances, and above all, their humours, are, in general, better 

 conduaors than water. As the body, then, of the perfon 

 who immerfes his hands in the water, affords an eaficr paf- 

 fage than this water does to the eleftric current, the latter 

 muft prefer it though a little longer. In a word, the 

 eleftric fluid, when it muft traverfe impcrfea conduAors in 

 a larcre quantity, and particularly moift conduaors, has a 

 propc°nfity to extend itfelf in a larger ftream, or to divide 

 itfelf into feveral, and even to purfue a winding courfe, as it 

 thereby finds lefs refiftance than by following one fingle chan- 

 nel, though fhorter ; in the prefent cafe it is only a part of the 

 elearic current, which, leaving the water, purfues this new 

 route through the body of the perfon, and iraverfes it from 

 the one arm°to the other : a greater or lefs part paffes through 

 the water in the veflel. This is the reafon why the fhock 

 experienced is much weaker than when the elearic current 

 is not divided when the perfon alone forms the communica- 

 tion between one arc and another, &c. 



From thefe experiments one might believe, that when the 

 torpedo wilhes to communicate a fliock to the arms of a man 

 or to animals which touch it, or which approach its body 

 under the water (which ihock is much weaker than what 

 the fifli can give out of the water), it has nothing to do but 

 to bring together fome of the parts of its elearic organ in 

 that place, where, by fome interval, the communication is 

 interrupted, to remove the interruptions from between the 

 columns of which the faid organ is formed, or from between 

 its membranes in the form of thin diflcs, which lie one above 

 the other from the bottom to the fummit of each column : 

 it has, I fuv, nothing to do but to remove thcfe interrup- 

 Q q ^ tions 



