470 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1 773. 



phial, by means of Lane's electrometer; the regulating rod of which, to 

 produce the latter effect, must be brought almost into contact with the prime 

 conductor which joins the phial. We have not yet perceived any spark to 

 accompany the shock, nor the pith balls to be ever affected. Indeed all our 

 trials hav6 been on very feeble subjects, whose shock was seldom sensible 

 beyond the touching finger: I remember but one, of at least 200, that I myself 

 must have received, to have extended above the elbow. Perhaps the Isle of Re, 

 which we are about to visit, may furnish us with torpedos fresher taken and of 

 more vigour, by which a further insight into these matters may be had. Our 

 experiments have been chiefly in the air, where the animal was more open to 

 our examination than in water. It is a singularity that the torpedo, when 

 insulated, should be able to give us, insulated likewise, 40 or 50 successive 

 shocks, from nearly the same part; and these with little, if any diminution in 

 their force: indeed they were all very minute. Each effort in the animal to 

 give the shock is constantly accompanied with a depression of his eyes, by 

 which even his attempts to give it to non-conductors can be observed. The 

 animal, with respect to the rest of his body, is in a great degree motionless, but 

 not wholly so. You will please to acquaint Dr. Bancroft, of our having thus 

 verified his suspicion concerning the torpedo,* and make any other communica- 

 tion of this matter you may judge proper. Here I shall be glad to excite, as 

 far as I am able, both electricians and naturalists, to push their inquiries 

 concerning this extraordinary animal, while the summer affords them the 

 opportunity." 

 Extracts of a Letter from Mr. Walsh to Dr. Franklin, dated Paris, T]th Aug., 



" r spent a complete week in my experiments at the Isle of Re, and 



had there every convenience for prosecuting them to their extent, except that I 

 was restrained by the jealousy of the government from making them where the 

 animal was caught. At my return to La Rochelle, I communicated to the 

 members of the academy of that place, and to many of the principal inhabitants, 

 all that I had observed concerning the torpedo, in the intention of stirring up 

 a spirit of inquiry, both as to its electricity and general economy." 



" The vigour of the fresh taken torpedos at the Isle of Re, was not 



able to force the torpedinal fluid across the minutest tract of air; not from one 

 link of a small chain, suspended freely, to another; not through an almost 

 invisible separation, made by the edge of a penknife, in a slip of tin foil pasted 

 on sealing wax. The spark therefore, of course the attendant snapping noise, 

 was denied to all our attempts to discover it, not only in day light, but in 



* Bancroft's Natural History of Guiana, p. 194. — Orig. 



