870 A HISTORY Or 



authority could not prevail upon a seaman to undergo the shock a se- 

 cond time. A Negro, indeed, that was standing by, readily under- 

 took to touch the torpedo, and was seen to handle it without feeling 

 any of its effects. He informed us, that his whole secret consisted 

 in keeping in his breath ; and we found, upon trial, that this method 

 answered with ourselves. When we held in our breath, the torpedo 

 was harmless ; but when we breathed ever so little, its efficacy took 

 place." 



Kempfer has very well described the effects of this animal's shock; 

 but succeeding experience has abundantly convinced us, that holding 

 in the breath, noway guards against its violence. Those, therefore, 

 who depending on that receipt, should play with a torpedo, would soon 

 find themselves painfully deceived : not but that this fish may be many 

 times touched with perfect security ; for it is not upon every occasion 

 that it exerts its potency. Reaumur, who made several trials upon 

 this animal, has at least convinced the world that it is not necessarily, 

 but by an effort, that the torpedo numbs the hand of him that touches 

 it. He tried several times, and could easily tell when the fish in- 

 tended the stroke, and when it was about to continue harmless. Al- 

 ways before the fish intended the stroke, it flattened the back, raised 

 the head and the tail, and then, by a violent contraction in the oppo- 

 site direction, struck with its back against the pressing finger, and 

 the body, which before was flat, became humped and round. 



But we must not infer, as he has done, that the whole effect of thia 

 animal's exertions arise from the greatness of the blow which the fin- 

 gers receive at the instant they are struck. We will, with him, allow, 

 that the stroke is very powerful, equal to that of a musket-ball, since 

 he will have it so; but it is very well known, that a blow, though ne- 

 ver so great on the points of the fingers, diffuses no numbness over 

 the whole body : such a blow might break the ends of the fingers in- 

 deed, but would hardly numb the shoulder. Those blows that numb, 

 must be applied immediately to some great and leading nerve, or fo a 

 large surface of the body ; a powerful stroke applied to the point^ of 

 the fingers will be excessively painful indeed, but the numbness will 

 not reach beyond the fingers themselves. We must, therefore, look 

 for another cause producing the powerful effects wrought by the 

 torpedo. 



Others have ascribed it to a tremulous motion which this animal is 

 found to possess, somewhat resembling that of a horse's skin, when 

 stung by a fly. This operating under the touch with an amazing 

 quickness of vibration, they suppose produces the uneasy sensation 

 described above ; something similar to what we feel when we rub 

 plush cloth against the grain. But the cause is quite disproportioned 

 ^o the effect ; and so much beyond our experience, that this solution 

 is as difficult as the wonder we wanted to explain. 



The most probable solution seems to be, that the shock proceeds 

 from an animal electricity, 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 contiguous objects, how it is originally procured, 

 hese are difficulties that time alone can elucidate. 



