ie 
FISHES. 571 
the Geodesic Survey, first made known the singular properties of this 
American fish, ‘I was much astonished,” says this author, “to see 
a fish some three or four feet in length, and resembling an eel, 
deprive of all sensation for a quarter of an hour the arm and neigh- 
bouring parts which touched it. I was not only an ocular witness of 
the effect produced by its touch; but I have myself felt it, on 
touching one of these fishes still living, though wounded by a hook, 
by means of which some Indians had drawn it from the water. They 
could not tell what it was called ; but they assured me that it struck 
other fishes with its tail in order to stupefy them and devour them 
Fig. 375.—The Electrical Eel (Gymnotus electricus). 
afterwards, which is very probable, when we consider the effect of its 
touch upon a man.” 
The observations of Richer made little impression at the time on 
the savants of Paris, and matters remained in this state for seventy 
years, when the traveller Condamine spoke in his “Voyage en 
Amérique ” of a fish which produced the effects described by Richer. 
In 1750 a physician named Ingram furnished some new views 
respecting this fish, which he thought was surrounded by an electric 
atmosphere. In 1755 the Dutch physician, Dr. Gramund, writes : 
“The effect produced by this fish corresponds exactly with that 
produced by the Leyden jar, with this difference, that we see no 
luminous appearance on its body, however strong ‘the blow it gives ; 
for if the fish is large, those who touch it are struck down, and feel 
the blow on their whole body.” 
