So T R A V E L S I N 
Kow few are our opportunities of obfefving 
nature ? Let us ftudy her more clofely, and we 
fliall perhaps find, that fhe has many particu- 
lar iavTS of which we are yet ignorant. Before 
the difcovery of eleftricity, bad an author ven- 
tured to alTert that there exifted fifh, which, 
though fmall in themfelves, could give to a 
number of perfons at once fo violent a fhock, 
as to make them feel confiderable pain in all 
the articulations of the body, the affertioa 
would have been regarded as the moft abfurd 
fable. This fuppofed fable, however, is be- 
come an indifputable truth. Without fpeaking 
of the torpedo, with which every body is ac- 
quainted^ I fhall content myfelf with citing, in 
proof of this fad, the JSeefaa/, or eledrical 
eel of Surinam. I had for many years an op- 
portunity of obferving this fpecies of fifh ; as 
my father, for the purpofe of experiment, kept 
one continually in his houfe. Upon touching 
a fringed fort of membrane, fituated under the 
belly, and extending the whole length of the 
body, I have always obferved a very violent 
fhock immediately follow. My father was 
defirous of afcertaining, if the fhock would 
be diminiflied by being commuaicated to a 
number 
