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tion in the hands, which held the two metals. 

 The most violent muscular movements are not 

 always accompanied by electric discharges. 



The action of the fish on the organs of man 

 is transmitted and intercepted by the same 

 bodies, that transmit and intercept the electrical 

 current of a conductor charged by a Leyden 

 vial, or Volta's pile. Some anomalies, which 

 we thought we observed, are easily explained, 

 when we recollect, that even metals (as is proved 

 from their ignition when exposed to the action 

 of the pile) present a slight obstacle to the pas- 

 sage of electricity ; and that a bad conductor 

 annihilates the effect of a feeble electricity on 

 our organs, while it transmits to us the effect 

 of a very strong electricity. The repulsive force, 

 that zinc and silver exercise between each other, 

 being far superior to that between gold and 

 silver, I have found, that, when a frog, prepared 

 and armed with silver, is galvanized under 

 water, the conducting arc of zinc produces con- 

 tractions, as soon as one of it's extremities ap- 

 proaches the muscles within three lines distance ; 

 while an arc of gold does not excite the organs, 

 when the stratum of water between the gold and 

 the muscles is more than half a line thick. In 

 the same manner, by employing a conducting 

 arc composed of two pieces of zinc and silver 

 soldered together endwise ; and resting, as before, 

 one of the extremities of the metallic arc on the 



