VOL. LXiri.] -^ PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. " 473 



torpedos, were on the 2 succeeding days repeated before numerous companies of 

 the principal inhabitants of La Rochelle. Besides the pleasure of gratifying the 

 curiosity of such as entertained any on the subject, and the desire I had to excite 

 a prosecution of the inquiry, I certainly wished to give all possible notoriety to 

 facts, which might otherwise be deemed improbable, perhaps by some of the 

 first rank in science. Great authorities had given a sanction to other solutions 

 of the phenomena of the torpedo; and even the electrician might not readily 

 listen to assertions, which seemed, in some respects, to combat the general 

 principles of electricity. I had reason to make such conclusions from different 

 conversations I had held on the subject with eminent persons, both at London 

 and Paris. It is but justice to say, that of all in that class you gave me the 

 greatest encouragement to look for success in this research, and even assisted 

 me in forming hypotheses, how the torpedo, supposed to be endued with 

 electric properties, might use them in so conducting an element as water. 



After generally recommending to others an examination of the electric powers 

 of these animals when acting in water, I determined, before I took my final 

 leave of them, to make some further experiments myself with that particular 

 view; since, notwithstanding the familiarity in which we may be said to have 

 lived with them for near a month, we had never detected them in the immediate 

 exercise of their electric faculties against other fish, confined with them in the 

 same water, either in the circumstance of attacking their prey, or defending 

 themselves from annoyance: and yet that they possessed such a power, and 

 exercised it in a state of liberty, could not be doubted. 



A large torpedo, very liberal of his shocks, being held with both hands by his 

 electric organs above and below, was briskly plunged into water to the depth of 

 a foot, and instantly raised an equal height into air; and was thus continually 

 plunged and raised, as quick as possible, for the space of a minute. In 

 the instant his lower surface touched the water in his descent, he always gave 

 a violent shock, and another still more violent in the instant of quitting the 

 water in his ascent; both which shocks, but particularly the last, were accom- 

 panied with a writhing in his body, as if meant to force an escape: besides these 2 

 shocks from the surface of the water, which may yet be considered as delivered 

 in the air, he constantly gave at least 2, when wholly in the air, and constantly 1, 

 and sometimes 2, when wholly in the water. The shock in water appeared, as 

 far as sensation could decide, not to have near a 4th of the force of those at the 

 surface of the water, nor nmch more than a 4th of those entirely in air. The 

 shocks received in a certain time were not, on this occasion, counted by a watch, 

 as they had been on a former, when 50 were delivered, in a minute and a half,' 

 by the animal in an insulated and an unagitated state: but from the quickness, 

 with which the immersions were made, it may be presumed there were full 20 of 



VOL. XIII. 3 P 



