TORPEDO RAY. 



301 



prising that no signs of attraction or repulsion were 

 perceived in the pith balls. In short the effect of 

 the Torpedo appears to arise from a compressed 

 elastic fluid, restoring itself to its equilibrium in 

 the same way and by the same mediums as the 

 elastic fluid compressed in charged glass. The skin 

 of the animal, bad conductor as it is, seems to be a 

 better conductor of his electricity than the thinnest 

 plate of elastic air. Notwithstanding the weak 

 spring of the torpedinal electricity, I was able, in 

 the public exhibitions of my experiments at La 

 Rochelle, to convey it through a circuit formed 

 from one surface of the animal to the other, by two 

 long brass wires, and four persons, which number, 

 at times, was encreased even to eight. The several 

 persons were made to communicate with each 

 other, and the two outermost with the wires, by 

 means of water contained in basins properly dis- 

 posed between them for that purpose." 



This curious and convincing experiment is thus 

 related by Mons^. Seignette (mayor of La Rochelle, 

 and one of the secretaries of its academy), pub- 

 lished in the French gazettes for the month of 

 October in the above year. 



■ " A live Torpedo was placed on a table. Round 

 another table stood Ave persons insulated. Two 

 brass wires, each thirteen feet long, were suspend- 

 ed to the ceiling by silken strings. One of these 

 wires rested by one end on the wet napkin on which 

 the fish lay : the other end was immersed in a basin 

 full of v/ater placed on the second table, on which 

 stood four other basins iikew ise full of water. The 



