ELECTRA ELECTRICITY. 



819 



of Westphalia, to settle the contests in the empire, 

 an eighth electorate was created, and given to the 

 Palatinate. Leopold I., in 1692, made Brunswick- 

 Luneburg the ninth electorate, which, after much 

 opposition on the part of the states of the empire, 

 and the body of electors, was acknowledged as such 

 in 1710. When, in 1777, the house of Bavaria 

 became extinct, and the dukedom fell to the Palati- 

 nate, the Bavarian electorship expired likewise, and 

 the number of electors was again eight ; of whom 

 Mentz, Treves, and Cologne were ecclesiastical, and 

 elective by the chapter of their archbishopric ; the 

 others secular and hereditary. There were five Ca- 

 tholic and three Protestant electors ; Saxony was a 

 Protestant electorate, though the ruling house was 

 Catholic. 



The chief privileges, common to all the electors, 

 were, 1. the right to elect the emperor ; 2. to draw 

 up the elective capitulation (see capitulation) ; 3. to 

 possess the great offices of the empire ; 4. to form a 

 separate college in the diets ; 5. to hold electoral 

 diets (Kurtage), for the election of the emperor, and 

 for consulting on the affairs of the empire, c. ; 6. 

 the exemption of their courts from the appellate 

 jurisdiction of the imperial courts (privilegium de non 

 apellando) ; 7. to possess the regal dignity, yet not 

 the title of majesty ; 8. to possess several electorates 

 at once ; 9. to acquire imperial fiefs, and allodial 

 estates in the empire, without the special permission 

 of the emperor. With each electorate there were 

 also special privileges connected, too many to be 

 enumerated here at length. The elector of Mentz, 

 for instance, was president of the electoral college, 

 director of the diet, and in the corpus Catholicorum 

 with the right to crown the emperor, which right, 

 however, was exercised by him alternately with the 

 elector of Treves, after 1656, who was arch-chancel- 

 lor in Gaul and Aries (a nominal dignity). The 

 elector of Cologne was arch-chancellor in Italy, and 

 legatus natus, that is, ex officio, representative of the 

 pope. The elector of Bohemia was arch-cupbearer, 

 and the first of the secular electors. The elector of 

 the Palatinate was arch-sewer, vicar of the empire 

 on the Rliine, and had more than one voice in the 

 diet. The elector of Saxony was arch-marshal, impe- 

 rial vicar of the empire, in the countries under the 

 Saxon law, and director of the corpus evangelicorum. 

 The elector of Brandenburg was arch-chamberlain, 

 and had several votes in the imperial colleges. The 

 elector of Brunswick-Luneburg was arch-treasurer, 

 alternately with the bishop of Osnabruck. By the 

 peace of Luneville, in 1801, the left bank of the 

 Rhine was ceded to France, and the ecclesiastical 

 electors lost their territory. Several changes took 

 place. In 1802, the elector ot Mentz was declared 

 elector-arch-chancellor, the two other ecclesiastical 

 electors set aside, and Baden, Wurtemberg, Hesse- 

 Cassel and Salzburg declared electorates; so that 

 there then existed ten electors. August 6, 1806, 

 the emperor abdicated the imperial dignity, and the 

 electors graduaUy adopted other titles. The elector 

 of Hesse- Cassel fled from his domains against the 

 advice of Louis Bonaparte (see his Reponse, 1829), 

 and was declared by Napoleon to have abdicated his 

 authority. When the elector, after the peace of 

 Paris, in 1814, again took possession of his country, 

 he retained the title of elector, which, however, in 

 the new constitution of the German confederacy, has 

 no meaning. 



ELECTRA ; in fabulous history, daughter of 

 Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. Her step-father, 

 ^Egisthus, wished her not to marry any of the princes 

 who were her suitors, lest her children should avenge 

 the death of Agamemnon ; he married her, however, 

 to a man of humble rank hi Argos, who left her a 



virgin. At the time of her father's death, she saved 

 her brother Orestes ; and when, afterwards, he was 

 tortured by the furies, on account of the murder of 

 liis mother, to which his sister had instigated him, 

 and she was informed by the oracle of Delphi that he 

 was slain in Tauria, by a priestess of Diana, she was 

 upon the point of killing with a fire-brand her sister 

 Iphigenia, who had just entered the temple as a 

 priestess of Diana, when Orestes came and pre- 

 vented the deed. Electra afterwards married Py- 

 lades, the intimate friend of her brother Orestes. 



ELECTRIC CALAMINE. See Zinc. 



ELECTRICAL EEL. A fish possessing the ex- % 

 traordinary property of communicating a sensation 

 similar to an electrical shock, when touched with the 

 hand, or an electric conductor. Body nearly of equal 

 thickness throughout ; head and tail obtuse ; length 

 five or six feet. The seat of the organs which pro- 

 duce this curious effect is along the under side ot the 

 tail. They are composed of four bundles of parallel 

 membranaceous laminae, placed very near each 

 other, and nearly horizontally, extended from the 

 skin to the central medial plane of the body, con- 

 nected together by numerous vertical laminae, ar- 

 ranged transversely. The little cells, or rather the 

 small prismatic and transverse canals intercepted by 

 these two kinds of laminae, are, according to Cuvier. 

 filled with a gelatinous substance ; and the whole 

 apparatus is abundantly supplied with nerves. Elec- 

 trical eels are of several species, the most famous of 

 which is the gymnotus electricus, found in the rivers of 

 South America. It is said to possess power, when 

 in full vigour, to knock down a man, and benumb 

 the limb effected, in the most painful manner, for 

 several hours after communicating the shock. By 

 frequent use of this faculty it becomes impaired, 

 and a considerable interval of rest is required 

 to recruit its electrical properties. Through 

 the medium of water, it is able to destroy small 

 fishes at a considerable distance, directing the 

 power at pleasure. Some authors aver, tliat the 

 gymnotus is found so large and powerful as to be- 

 numb a horse, and to drown him while bathing, by 

 the violence of the shock. A specimen of the gym 

 notus, which was conveyed alive to England some 

 years since, afforded the curious an opportunity of 

 verifying the reports of travellers as to its electric 

 property. Since that period, numerous specimens 

 have been examined, and the preceding observa- 

 tions confirmed. The property of communicating 

 electrical shocks is common to some other fishes of 

 the same subdivision. Specimens of the gymnotus 

 electricus are reported to attain the length of six or 

 seven feet, but ordinarily they are about three and a 

 half or four feet long. The flesh is eatable, and, in ap- 

 pearance and flavour, said to resemble that of an eeL. 



ELECTRICITY ; a branch of natural philosophy, 

 which investigates the attractions and repulsions, 

 the production of light, and the elevation of tem- 

 perature, as well as the explosions and other pheno- 

 mena attending the friction of vitreous, resinous, and 

 metallic surfaces, and the heating, cooling, evapora- 

 tion and mutual contact of a great number of bodies. 

 Its name is derived from the Greek word XI*TJV, 

 (amber), in which substance its phenomena were first 

 observed. The knowledge which the ancients were 

 possessed of concerning this interesting and now 

 very extensive branch of science, consisted in little 

 more than the fact, that amber acquired the power 

 of attracting to itself light bodies, on being rubbed, 

 ascribed, by Thales of Miletus, to an inherent soul 

 or essence, which, awakened by friction, went fort"' 

 and brought back the light particles floating around- 

 In the year 1600, Dr Gilbert, an English physiciH> 

 published a treatise upon the magnet, in which he 

 3 F 2 



