456 



NATURE 



\_March 20, 1879 



object transcending consciousness, or of anything but 

 states of consciousness, their compounds, and relations 

 among themselves. To speak of "matter" as a cause 

 of our feelings is, on such a theory, meaningless ; and 

 such a cause as an inference is impossible. Matter and 

 motion, then,' are simply convertible with states of con- 

 sciousness, in fact, with feelings. And when we are told 

 that these phenomena precede and cause the states of 

 consciousness we call sensations, emotions, thoughts, we 

 say merely that one set of states of consciousness is ante- 

 cedent and cause of certain others. We have, therefore, 

 wholly given up the dualistic scheme and the aim with 

 which we started, viz., that of explaining the feelings by 

 material phenomena. We now really profess to explain 

 the whole of our conscious states — or mind — by one set of 

 its states or phenomena, viz., those we call matter and 

 motion. But does Prof. Huxley not see the pctitio pri7icipii 

 involved in such an argument ? When I am cognisant of 

 the phenomena, matter and motion, have I not assumed 

 consciousness and its states to account for consciousness 

 and its states ; or rather, which is worse, have I not 

 assumed certain very elementary states of consciousness — 

 to account for, in fact, to generate the whole contents of 

 mind — in all their complexity and reach — intellect, emo- 

 tion, desire, volition, and moral sense|? This is cutting 

 the knot coarsely with a hatchet. It is not even solving 

 the problem as to how from rudimentary states of con- 

 sciousness itself, mind can rise to its recognised fulness 

 and complexity — rise, in a word, to that which we call 

 matured consciousness. J. Veitch 



SACHS'S VENEZUELA 



Aus den Llanos. Schilderutig einer ttaturiuissenscha/t- 

 lichen Reise nach Venezuela. Von Carl Sachs. (Leipzig: 

 _ Veit, 1879.) 



NO one who has a liking for natural history should 

 omit to read Dr. Sachs' account of his adventures 

 in the Llanos of Venezuela. German books of travel, 

 though possessing a large amount of solid information 

 are often rather dry and heavy. But Dr. Sachs' volume 

 is certainly an exception to the rule, and may, we think, 

 be placed, as regards the interest of its narrative, nearly, 

 if not quite, on a par with the well-known works of Bates 

 and Wallace. 



The late Dr. Carl Sachs, who was formerly as- 

 sistant to the great physiologist of Berlin, Emil du 

 Bois-Reymond, and lost his life in an unfortunate 

 accident on the glaciers of Monte Cevedale in August, 

 1878, went out to Venezuela, not with the ordinary ob- 

 jects of the travelling naturalist, although no opportunity 

 was lost of collecting specimens, but for the especial de- 

 sign of obtaining a better knowledge of that most won- 

 derful of fishes commonly called the electric eel {Gymnotus 

 electricus). No more appropriate use could certainly have 

 been made^ of the " Humboldt-Fund," collected in order 

 to preserve in memory that great naturalist, than the 

 devotion of it to such a purpose. Humboldt's account of 

 the electric eels and the mode of their capture, is among 

 the best known portions of his travels. Nearly eighty 

 years had passed without any naturalist having trodden 

 in Humboldt's footsteps, or having attempted on the spot 

 the further elucidation of the extraordinary properties of 



this fish, aided by the enormous development which the 

 science of physiology had made since that period. 



With this object, therefore, Dr. Sachs left Europe in 

 October, 1876, determined to visit the home of the electric 

 eels in the same streams that Humboldt had found them 

 in the year 1800. To arrive at this destination is not in 

 these days a matter of great difficulty. From Hamburg a 

 swift ocean-steamer bore our naturalist to La Guayra, and 

 a day's ride over the coast chain of the Andes brought 

 him to Caracas, the capital of Venezuela. After a few 

 days' spent in rest in this lovely city and in excursions in 

 the neighbourhood, Dr. Sachs turned his face due south- 

 wards, and, accompanied by servants and baggage-mules, 

 rode over the grassy plains, or Llanos, which cover the 

 southern part of the republic. Ten days' travel brought 

 him to the little village of El Rastro, situated on one of 

 the small confluents of the Rio Sisnado, a branch of the 

 Orinoco, the very spot where Humboldt had captured 

 Gyvinoii seventy-six years before. 



Humboldt' s account of the mode in which this operation 

 was effected in his days is well known. The Indians "fished 

 with horses." About thirty wild horses and mules from 

 the Llanos were collected and driven into the river. The 

 stamping of the beasts drove the eels out of their hiding- 

 places in the mud into the middle of the stream, where 

 they got under the bellies of the horses and attacked them 

 with repeated discharges of their electric organs. The 

 unhappy quadrupeds rushed out to the banks, but were 

 driven back into the water by the shouts and sticks of the 

 surrounding Indians, until many of them, exhausted by 

 the repeated shocks of the Gymnoti, sank to rise no more. 

 The eels thus lightened of their superabundant stock of 

 electricity were easily captured by the Indians. 



Such is Humboldt' s well-known story. But strange to 

 say the Venezuelans of the present day simply laughed 

 when Dr. Sachs proposed to put a similar plan in opera- 

 tion, and said they had never heard of such a thing. 

 Indeed Dr. Sachs after various inquiries on the subject, 

 was at last driven to the conclusion that fishing for 

 electric eels with horses, as described by his illustrious 

 countryman, must have been quite an exceptional occur- 

 rence, and could never have been a recognised custom. 



In fact. Dr. Sachs was altogether unsuccessful in in- 

 ducing the people of El Rastro to procure him electric 

 eels in any way, and, after some rather disheartening 

 attempts, shifted his quarters to the neighbouring town 

 of Calabozo, where he hoped to find better quarters and 

 a more intelligent set of assistants. Here, also, although 

 his offers for electric eels were raised to ten pesos (about 

 30i'.) a head, the fishes did not " come in," and poor Dr. 

 Sachs was almost beginning to despair, when he fortu- 

 nately heard of a certain ''LJanero"— General Guancho 

 Rodriguez— the very man for the occasion. How under Don 

 Guancho's generalship these redoubtable eels were at length 

 captured and brought home to the doctor's laboratory at 

 Calabozo, how the necessary experiments were conducted 

 to the wonderment of the good Calabocenos, and how. 

 Christmas is passed in that city, is all well told in some*^ 

 entertaining chapters, which will be much appreciated by : 

 those who read Dr. Sachs' s narrative. It musts suffice for^ 

 us to say that during Dr. Sachs' s stay at Calabozo, whieb[ 

 lasted until March, 1877, the main objects of the expedition;; 

 were^tully attairted, and a number of important researches^ 



