498 FISHES. 



of real electricity, being conducted by similar conducting &ub 

 stances, and intercepted by others of an opposite nature. Thus, 

 on touching the fish with the fingers, the same sensation is per- 

 ceived as on touching a charged phial, being sometimes felt as far as 

 the elbows ; and if touched by both hands, an electric shock is 

 conveyed through the breast in the usual manner. Fermin, in par- 

 ticular, who, during his residence in Surinam, had frequent oppor- 

 tunities of examining the animal, demonstrated by experiment that 

 fourteen slaves, holding each other by the hands, received the shock 

 at the same instant ; the first touching the fish with a stick *, and 

 the last dipping his hand into the water in which it was kept. The 

 experiments of Dr. Bancroft were equally satisfactory. After 

 this. viz. about the year 1775, Mr. Williamson, in a letter from 

 Philadelphia to Mr. Walsh, so'celebrated for his observations rela- 

 tive to the electricity of the torpedo, communicated his own highly 

 satisfactory experiments on the gymnotus. On touching the ani- 

 mal with one hand, in such a manner as to irritate it considerably, 

 while the other was held at a small distance from it in the water, 

 he experienced as strong a shock as from a charged Leyden phial. 

 The shock was also readily communicated through a circle formed 

 by eight or ten persons at once ; the person at one extremity put- 

 ting his hand in the water, near the fish, while the other touched 

 the animal. It would be tedious to recite all the various modi- 

 fications of these experiments, and it is sufficient to add, that all 

 conspired to prove the genuine voluntary electricity of the animal ; 

 though occasionally exhibiting some variations from the pheno- 

 mena of common electricity. It is by this extraordinary faculty 

 that the gymnotus supports its existence : the smaller fishes and 

 other animals which happen to approach it, being instantly stu- 

 pified, and thus falling an easy prey to the electrical tyrant. So 

 powerful is the shock which this fish, in its native waters, is ca- 

 pable of exerting, that it is said to deprive almost entirely of sense 

 and motion those who are exposed to its approach, and is therefore 

 much dreaded by those who bathe in the rivers it inhabits. 



A very accurate description of the exterior form of the gymnote 

 was drawn up by the late ingenious Dr. Garden, of Charles Town ? 

 in South Carolina^ addressed to the celebrated Mr. Ellis ; and an 



* Probably a green or moist ono. 



