FISHES. 



57* 



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

 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 neigh- 

 bouring parts which touched it. I was not only an- ocular witness of 

 the effect produced 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 



Fig- 375 The Electrical Eel (Gymnotus electricus). 



afterwards, which is very probable, when we consider the effect of its 

 touch upon a man/' 



The observations of Richer 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 

 Ame'rique " of a fish which produced the effects described by Richer. 

 In 1750 a physician named Ingram furnished some new views 

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

 atmosphere. In 1755 the Dutch physician, Dr. Gramund, writes: 

 " The effect produced by this fish corresponds exactly with that 

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

 luminous appearance 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*" 



