CARTILAGINOUS FISHES. 



637 



yond our experience, that this solution is as 

 difficult as the wonder we want to explain. 



The most probable solution seems to be, 

 that the shock proceeds from an animal elec- 

 tricity, which this fish has some hidden power 

 of storing up, and producing on its most urgent 

 occasions. The shocks are entirely similar ; 

 the duration of the pain is the same ; but how 

 the animal contrives to renew the charge, how 

 it is prevented from evaporating it on con- 

 tiguous objects, how it is originally procured, 

 these are difficulties that time alone can eluci- 

 date. 



But to know even the effects is wisdom. 

 Certain it is. that the powers of this animal 

 seem to decline with its vigour ; for as its 

 strength ceases, the force of the shock seems 

 to diminish ; till, at last, w hen the fish is dead, 

 the whole power is destroyed, and it may be 

 handled or eaten with perfect security: on the 

 contrary, when immediately taken out of the 

 sea, its force is very great, and not only affects 

 the hand, but if even touched with a stick, the 

 person finds himself sometimes affected. This 

 power, however, is not to be extended to the 

 degree that some would have us believe ; as 

 reaching the fishermen at the end of the line, 

 or numbing fish, s in the same pond. Godig- 

 nus, in his History of Abyssinia, carries this 

 quality to a most ridiculous excess ; he tells us 

 of one of these that was put into a basket 

 among a number of dead fishes, and that the 

 next morning the people, to their utter aston- 

 ishment, perceived, that the torpedo had actu- 

 ally numbed the dead fishes into life again. 



To conclude, it is generally supposed that 

 the female torpedo is much more powerful 

 than the male. Lorenzini, who has made 



From a series of experiments made by Mr. Walsh, 

 and communicated to the Royal Society, it appears that 

 the powers of this animal are purely electric ; though no 

 spark could ever be discovered to proceed from it, nor 

 wore pith-balls ever affected by it. " A live Torpedo," 

 rnys this ingenious experimentalist, " was placed on a 

 table; round another table stood five persons insulated; 

 two brass wires, each thirteen feet long, were suspended 

 from the ceiling by silken strings; one of these wires rest- 

 ed by one end on the wet napkin on which the fish lay ; 

 the other end was immersed in a basin full of water, p-'aced 

 on a second table, on which stood four other basins like- 

 wise full of water ; the first person put a finger (if one 

 hand in the basin in which the wire was immersed, and a 

 finger of the other hand in a second basin : the second 

 person put a finger of one hand in this last basin, and a 

 f.nger of the other hand in the third ; and so on succes- 



several experiments upon this animal, seems 

 convinced that its power wholly resides in two 

 thin muscles that cover a part of the back. 

 These he calls the trembling fibres ; and he 

 asserts that the animal may be touched with 

 safety in any other part It is now known 

 also that there are more fish, than this of the 

 ray kind, possessed of the numbing quality, 

 which has acquired them the name of the tor- 

 pedo. These are described by Atkins and 

 Moore, and found in great abundance along 

 the coast of Africa. They are shaped like a 

 mackarel, except that the head is much larger; 

 the effects of these seem also to differ in some 

 respects. Moore talks of keeping his hand 

 upon the animal ; u hich in the ray torpedo it 

 is actually impossible to do. " There was no 

 man in the company," says he, " that could 

 bear to keep his hand on this animal the 

 twentieth part of a minute, it gave him so 

 great pain ; but upon taking the hand away, 

 the numbness went off, and all was well again. 

 This numbing quality continued in this torpedo 

 even after it was dead ; and the very skin was 

 still possessed of its extraordinary power till it 

 became dry." Condamine informs us of a fish 

 possessed of the pouers of the torpedo, of a 

 shape very different from the former, and every 

 way resembling a lamprey. This animal, if 

 touched by the hand, or even w ith a stick, 

 instantly benumbs the hand and arm to the 

 wry shoulder ; and sometimes the man falls 

 down under the blow. These animals, there- 

 fore, must affect the nervous system in a dif- 

 ferent manner from the former, both with re- 

 spect to the manner and the intention ; but 

 hnw this effect is wrought, we must be content 

 to dismiss in obscurity.* 



sively,till the five persons communicated with one another 

 by the water in the basins. In the last basin, one end of 

 the second wire was immersed, and with the other end 

 Mr. Walsh touched the torpedo ; when five persons felt a 

 commotion, which differed in nothing from that of the 

 Leyden experiment, except in the degree of force. Mr. 

 Walsh, who was not in the circle of conduction, received 

 no shock. The action of the torpedo is communicated 

 by the same mediums as that of the electric fluid; and 

 the bodies which intercept the action of the one, intercept 

 likewise the action of the other. The effect produced by 

 the torpedo, when in air, appeared, on many repeated ex- 

 periments, to be about four times as strong as when in 

 water. The numbness produced by the shock of the tor- 

 pedo was imitated by artificial electricity, and shown to 

 be producible by a quick concussion of minute shocks. 

 This, in the torpedo, may be effected by the successive 

 4X 



