PRESENT STATE OF ORGANIC ELECTRICITY. 343 



therefore, that the animal has the power of continuing the 

 evolution for a sensible time ; so that its successive discharges 

 rather resemble those of a voltaic arrangement intermitting 

 in its action than those of a Leyden apparatus charged and 

 discharged many times in succession. At the same time the 

 power is one of low intensity, so that a dry skin wards it off, 

 though a moist one conducts it.* 



It is remarkable that the electric fishes, although affected 

 like other animals by ordinary electric shocks, do not appear 

 to feel the electric discharges which are produced by them- 

 selves, or by other individuals of the same species. 



The Condition of the Water which surrounds the Fish at the 

 moment of discharge of the Electric Organs. At the moment of 

 a discharge in water, the currents between the opposite surfaces 

 of Torpedo, or between the ends of Gymnotus, instead of being 

 confined to a transverse area of limited extent, as when they 

 pass along a wire during a discharge in air, must be diffused 

 through a considerable extent of the water surrounding the 

 fish. The entire current force of the batteries must, in fact, 

 be subdivided into numerous subordinate axes of force arranged 

 in lines which come round the margins of Torpedo from back 

 to belly, and along the sides of Gymnotus from head to tail. 

 There is therefore at the moment of discharge an atmosphere 

 of power around the fish which, in the language employed by 

 Mr. Faraday in reference to the magnetic force, may be con- 

 sidered as disposed in sphondyloids determined by the lines, 

 or rather shells, of force. " The magnet, with its surrounding 

 sphondyloid of power, may be considered as analogous in its 

 condition to a voltaic battery immersed in water or any other 

 electrolyte, or to a Gymnotus or Torpedo at the moment when 

 these creatures, at their own will, fill the surrounding fluid 

 with lines of electric force." It is evident, therefore, that 

 another fish, placed so that its antero-posterior axis is in the 



* Faraday, Researches in Electricity, vol. i. p. 101. 



