130 SHOCKS OF THE 



accordingly separated with care from the rest of the ep,l. 

 The presence of gymnoti is alsc considered as the principal 

 cause of the want of fish in the ponds and pools of the 

 Llanos. They, however, kill many more than they devour : 

 and the Indians told us, that when young alligators and 

 gymnoti are caught at the same time in very strong nets, 

 the latter never show the slightest trace of a wound, 

 because they disable the young alligators before they are 

 attacked by them. All the inhabitants of the waters dread 

 the society of the gymnoti. Lizards, tortoises, and frogs, 

 seek pools where they are secure from the electric action. 

 It became necessary to change the direction of a road 

 near Uritucu, because the electric eels were so numerous 

 in one river, that they every year killed a great number of 

 mules, as they forded the water with their burdens. 



Though in the present state of our knowledge we may 

 natter ourselves with having thrown some light on the 

 extraordinary effects of electric fishes, yet a vast number of 

 physical and physiological researches still remain to be made. 

 The brilliant results which chemistry has obtained by means 

 of the Voltaic battery, have occupied all observers, and turned 

 attention for some time from the examinations of the phe- 

 nomena of vitality. Let us hope that these phenomena, the 

 most awful and the most mysterious of all, will in their turn 

 occupy the earnest attention of natural philosophers. This 

 hope will be easily realized if they succeed in procuring 

 anew living gymnoti in some one of the great capitals of 

 Europe. The discoveries that will be made on the electro- 

 motive apparatus of these fish, much more energetic, and 

 more easy of preservation, than the torpedos,* will extend 



* In order to investigate the phenomena of the living electromotive 

 apparatus in its greatest simplicity, and not to mistake for general 

 conditions circumstances which depend on the degree of energy of the 

 electric organs, it is necessary to perform the experiments on those 

 electrical fishes most easily tamed. If the gymnoti were not known, we 

 might suppose, from the observations made on torpedos, that fishes can- 

 not give their shocks from a distance through very thick strata of water, 

 Or through a bar of iron, without forming a circuit. Mr. Williamson has 

 felt strong shocks when he held only one hand in the water, and this 

 band, without touching the gymnotus, was placed between it and the 

 small fish towards which the stroke was directed from ten or fifteei 

 incites distance. (Philosophical Transactions, vol. Ixv, pp. 99 and 108) 



