112 THE SELF-TAUGHT ELECTRICIAN. 



reading the treatise of De Lafond, and Franklin's 

 Memoirs. Senor Carlos del Pozo, the name of this 

 ingenious man, had begun to make cylindrical electrical 

 machines, by employing large glass jars, after having cut 

 off the necks. It was only a few years before that he 

 had been able to procure, by way of Philadelphia, two 

 plates, to construct a plate machine, and to obtain more 

 considerable effects. It is easy to judge what difficulties 

 Senor Pozo had to encounter, since the first works upon 

 electricity had fallen into his hands, and that he had the 

 courage to resolve to procure himself, by his own industry, 

 all that he had seen described in his books. Till now he 

 had enjoyed only the astonishment and admiration pro- 

 duced by his experiments on persons destitute of all 

 information, and who had never quitted the solitude of 

 the Llanos ; the abode of Humboldt and Bonpland at 

 Calabozo gave him a satisfaction altogether new. It 

 may be supposed that he set some value on the opinions 

 of two travellers who could compare his apparatus with 

 those constructed in Europe. Humboldt had brought 

 with him electrometers mounted with straw, pith-balls, 

 and gold-leaf ; also a small Ley den jar which served for 

 his physiological experiments. Senor del Pozo could 

 not contain his joy on seeing for the first time instruments 

 which he had not made, yet which appeared to be copied 

 from his own. Humboldt showed him the effect of the 

 contact of heterogeneous metals on the nerves of frogs. 

 The names of Galvani and Volta had not previously been 

 heard in those vast solitudes. 



Next to the electrical apparatus, nothing at Calabozo 

 excited in the travellers so great an interest as the 

 gymnoti, which were animated electrical apparatuses, 



