538 THE OCEAN WORLD. 



able, from its singular physical properties, is the Electrical Eel, Gym- 

 notus electricys (Fig. 364). These properties enable the gymnotus 

 to arrest suddenly the pursuit of an enemy, or the flight of its prey, to 

 suspend on the instant every movement of its victim, and subdue it 

 by an invisible power. Even the fishermen themselves are suddenly 

 struck and rendered torpid at the moment of seizing it, while nothing 

 external betrays the mysterious power possessed by the animal. 



The electrical properties of the gymnotus were reported for the 

 first time by Van Berkal. The astronomer Eicher, who had been 

 sent to Cayenne in 1671 by the Academy of Sciences of Paris, on 

 the Geodesic Survey, first made known the singular properties of the 

 American fish. " I was much astonished," says this author, " to see a 

 fish some three or four feet in length, and resembling an eel, deprive of 

 all sensation for a quarter of an hour the arm and neighbouring parts 

 which touched it. I was not only an ocular witness of the effect pro- 

 duced by its touch ; but I have myself felt it, on touching one of these 

 fishes still living, though wounded by a hook, by means of which some 

 Indians had drawn it from the water. They could not tell what it 

 was called ; but they assured me that it struck other fishes with its 

 tail in order to stupefy them and devour them afterwards, which is 

 very probable when we consider the effect of its touch upon a man." 



The observations of Eicher made little impression at the time on 

 the savants of Paris, and matters remained in this state for seventy 

 years, when the traveller Condamine spoke in his " Voyage en 

 Amerique " of a fish which produced the effects described by Eicher. 

 In 1750 a physician named Ingram furnished some new views 

 respecting this fish, which he thought was surrounded by an electric 

 atmosphere. In 1755 another physician, the Dutch Dr. Grarnund, 

 writes : " The effect produced by this fish corresponds exactly with that 

 produced by the Leyden jar, with this difference, that we see no tinsel 

 on its body, however strong the blow it gives ; for if the fish is large, 

 those who touch it are struck down, and feel the blow on their whole 

 body." 



Many experiments followed these ; but we are indebted to Alexander 

 von Humboldt for the first precise account of this very curious fish. 

 The celebrated naturalist read to the Institute of France an important 

 memoir upon the electrical eel from Bonpland's observations, the sub- 

 stance of which we shall give here. 



