516 THE OCEAN WORLD. 



that, in place of a strong and sudden shock, only a slight sensation is 

 experienced a numbness, or start, rather than a shock. The same 

 result followed with every experiment tried. The animal was tried 

 with a non-conducting rod, and no shock followed ; glass, or a rod 

 covered with wax, produced no effect ; touched with a metallic wire, a 

 violent shock followed. Melloni, Matteucci, Becquerel, and Breschet 

 have all made the same experiments with the same results Matteucci 

 having ascertained that the shock produced by the torpedo is com- 

 parable to that given by a voltaic pile of a hundred to a hundred and 

 fifty pairs of plates. 



The organ which produces this curious result is formed like a half- 

 moon; it is double, and placed on each side of the mouth of the 

 respiratory organs. It consists of a multitude of small prisms arranged 

 parallel the one to the other and perpendicularly to the surface ; 

 twelve hundred and sixty-two of these prisms have been counted in 

 one of the two organs of a torpedo, three feet in length. Without 

 entering into the anatomical descriptions which have been given by 

 Stannius, Max Schultze, Breschet, and others, we may mention here 

 that all the small parallelopipedes, which enter into their structure, are 

 separated one from the other by walls of cellular tissue, in which are 

 distributed the vessels and nerves. The nervous threads which each 

 apparatus receives are divided into four principal trunks. According 

 to modern authors, the electricity is elaborated in the brain under the 

 influence of the will. It is afterwards transferred by means of the 

 nervous threads into the principal organ, where it serves the purpose 

 of charging the numerous little voltaic piles which constitute the organ 

 of commotion. 



It is, nevertheless, necessary to receive our comparisons of the 

 apparatus of the torpedo with the voltaic pile of our laboratories with 

 caution. The apparatus resembles a good conducting body, which 

 is capable of being strongly electrified ; it is sufficient to touch one 

 of the surfaces in order to receive the shock. But if the little prisms 

 composing it were charged like our voltaic piles, it would be necessary 

 to touch both their surfaces in order to receive the shock. No perfect 

 analogy can therefore exist between this natural apparatus and the 

 scientific instrument named after Yolta. 



It is possible by the aid of heat to restore the extinct or suspended 

 electrical functions of the torpedo. Ketained in a tank of sea-water 



