374 GALVANIC ELECTRICITY. 



in recently killed fish, was strikingly demon- 

 strated by some experiments of Mr. Clift, who 

 found, that four hours after the head of a carp 

 had been cut off, and its heart taken out, (the 

 fish being considered as perfectly dead,) when 

 put in hot water, it leaped out of the vessel with 

 a degree of vigour equal to the struggles of a 

 living fish. (Phil. Transactions for 1815.) 



A similar fact was observed by Lord Bacon, 

 who relates that he saw, with his own eyes, the 

 heart of a criminal taken out of his body some 

 time after execution, and thrown into the fire, 

 when it leaped up several times to a considerable 

 height. Without commenting on these facts, 

 which belong to another portion of the present 

 work, it may be observed that they demonstrate 

 the agency of heat in animal motion, at least as 

 clearly as that of electricity, even admitting 

 (what has never been proved,) that electricity 

 could exist independent of caloric. 



The first philosopher who referred the phe- 

 nomena observed by Sultzer, Galvani, and Volta, 

 to chemical action, was Fabroni, in a paper 

 communicated to the Academy of Florence, in 

 1792. He had often observed that fluid mer- 

 cury retained its lustre for a long time when 

 alone ; but that when amalgamated with other 

 metals, it speedily tarnished by oxidation ; and 

 that similar effects were produced on some alloys 

 of tin. He had remarked in the Museum of 



