FISHES. SAI 
Réaumur also made some observations upon the Torpedo. “The 
benumbing influence,” he says, “is very different from any similar 
sensation. All over the arm there is a commotion which it is impos- 
sible to describe, but which, so far as comparison can be made, 
resembles the sensation produced by striking the tender part of the 
elbow against a hard substance.” Redi remarks, besides, that the 
pain and trembling sensation resulting from the touch diminishes as 
the death of the Torpedo approaches, and that it ceases altogether 
when the animal dies. 
In the seventeenth century the fishermen affirmed that the sensa- 
tion was even communicated through the line by which it was caught, 
and even by the water. Redi does not deny this phenomenon, 
neither does he confirm it. He states that the action of the animal 
is never more energetic than when it is strongly pressed by the hand, 
and makes violent efforts to escape. Neither Redi nor Réaumur, 
however, could explain the cause of the strange phenomenon. It 
was reserved for Dr. Walsh, a Fellow of the Royal Society of London, 
to demonstrate the fact that the power was electrical in its nature. 
This he did by numerous experiments which he made in the Isle of 
Ré. The following are some of his experiments. 
He placed a living torpedo upon a clean wet towel; from a plate 
he suspended two pieces of brass wire by means of silken cord, which 
served to isolate them. Round the torpedo were eight persons, 
standing on isolating substances. One end of the brass wire was sup- 
ported by the wet towel, the other end being placed in a basin full of 
water. ‘The first person had a finger of one hand in this basin, and a 
finger of the other in a second basin, also full of water. The second 
person placed a finger of one hand in this second basin, and a finger 
of the other hand in a third basin. The third person did the same, 
and so on, until a complete chain was established between the eight 
persons and nine basins. Into the ninth basin the end of the second 
brass wire was plunged, while Dr. Walsh applied the other end to the 
back of the torpedo, thus establishing a complete conducting circle. 
At the moment when the experimenter touched the torpedo, the 
eight actors in the experiment felt a sudden shock, similar in all 
respects to that communicated by the shock of a Leyden jar, only 
less intense. 
When the torpedo was placed on an isolated supporter, it com- 
municated to many persons similarly placed from forty to fifty shocks 
in a minute and a half. Each effort made by the animal, in order 
to give them, was accompanied by the depression of its eyes, which 
were slightly projecting in their natural state, and seemed to be 
