610 
E L E 
strongest shocks when provoked by being 
frequently and roughly touched. 
When small fishes are put into the water 
where the gymnotus is, they are commonly 
stunned, and are either effectually or ap- 
parently killed. 
The strongest shocks of the gymnoti 
which were exhibited in London, would pass 
through a very short interruption of conti- 
nuity in the circuit. They could be con- 
veyed by a short chain when stretched, so 
as to bring the links into a more perfect con- 
tact. \\ hen the interruption was formed by 
an incision made with a pen-knife on a slip 
of tin-foil that v T as pasted upon glass, the 
shock in passing through that interruption, 
shewed a small but vivid spark, plainly visi- 
ble in a dark room. 
T his animal shewed a peculiar property, 
namely, that of knowing when he could, and 
when he could not, give the shock ; for if 
non-conductors or interrupted circuits were 
placed in the water, he would not approach 
them ; but as soon as the circuit was com- 
pleted, he would approach the extremities of 
that circuit, and immediately give the 
shock. 
I he third fish which is known to have the 
power of giving the. shock, is found in the 
rivers of Africa; but we have a very imper- 
fect account of its properties. 
1 iiis animal belongs to the genus which 
the naturalists call siluris; hence its name is 
siluris electricus. The length of some of 
these fishes lias been found to exceed 20 
inches. 
I he body of the siluris electricus is ob- 
Iong, smooth, and without scales ; being 
rather large, and flattened towards its an- 
terior part. r ] he eyes are of a middle size, 
and are covered by the skrn, which envelopes 
the whole head. Each jaw is armed with a 
great number of small teeth. About the 
mouth it has six filamentous appendices, 
viz. four from the under lip, and two from 
fhe upper; the two external ones, or farther- 
most from the mouth on the. upper lip, are 
the longest. The colour of the body is grey- 
ish, and towards the tail it has some blackish 
spots. 
I he electric organ seems to be towards the 
tail, where the skin is thicker than on the 
rest of the body ; and a whitish fibrous sub- 
stance, which is probably the electric organ, 
has been distinguished under it. 
ft is said that the siluris electricus has the 
property of giving a shock or benumbing 
sensation, like the torpedo, and that this 
shock is communicated through substances 
that are conductors of electricity. No other 
particular seems to be known concerning it. 
■ Nature seems to have given these fishes 
the singular power of giving the shock for 
the purpose of securing their prey, by which 
they must subsist; and perhaps likewise for 
the purpose of repelling larger animals, which 
might otherwise annoy them. The power 
with which they are endued seems more to 
correspond with Galvanism (which is doubt- 
less a species of electricity) than with com- 
mon electricity. See Galvanism. 
The antients' considered the shocks of the 
torpedo as capable of curing various dis- 
orders ; and a modern philosopher will hardly 
hesitate to credit their assertions, since elec- 
tricity has been found to be au useful remedy 
in several cases. J 
E L E 
A fourth fish, said to give shocks like the 
above-mentioned, was found on the coast of 
Johanna, one of the Comoro islands, in lat. 
12 13' sou tli, by lieutenant now col. William 
1 aterson, and an imperfect account of it is 
S lv ’ en in fhe 76th volume of the Philoso- 
phical Transactions. 
1 lie fish is described to be seven inches 
long, two and a half broad, has a long pro- 
jecting mouth, and seems of the genus te- 
ti oc.on. Tiie back of the fish is a dark-brown 
colour, the belly part of a sea-green, the sides 
) ellow, and the fins and tail ot a sandv-green. 
1 he body is interspersed with red, green, and 
white spots, the white ones particularly 
bright ; the eyes large, the iris red, its outer 
edge tinged with yellow.” 
vV hilst this fish is living, strong shocks, 
like electrical shocks, are felt by a person, 
who attempts to hold it between his hands. 
1 hree persons only are mentioned in the 
account as having experienced this property 
of one of those fishes ; but the want of op- 
portunity prevented the trial of farther ex- 
periments. 
ELECl'UARY, in pharmacy, a form in 
w hich botli officinal and extemporaneous me- 
dicines are frequently made. See Phar- 
macy. 
ELEGIAC, in antient poetry, any thing 
belonging to elegy. 
Elegiac verses are alternately hexameter 
and pentameter, as in the following verses 
of Ovid: 
Flebilis indignos, elegeia, solve capillos : 
Ah ! nimis ex vero nunc tibi nomen erit. 
Sometimes, though very rarely, the penta- 
meter preceded the hexameter, as in the 
following verses of Athena: us: 
lu<$ottp.uy Xccpiriov xai, M tXavnrir©. epv 
Gilds ayisripis uptju.f.ptots piAo-rnr©-. 
\\ ho was tiie inventor of elegiac poetry, is 
not known. Horace professes himself quite 
ignorant of it. The principal writers of 
elegia cverse, among the Latins, were Proper- 
tins, Ovid, and I ibullus, the latter of whom 
Quintilian esteems the best elegiac poet, 
but Pliny the younger gives the preference 
to the first : the chief writers of elegy among 
the Greeks were Callimachus, Parthenius, 
and Euphorion. 
ELEGIA, a genus of the dioecia triandria 
class and order. r I here is one species, a na- 
tive of the Cape, which has the habit of a 
rush. 
ELEGIT, in law, a writ of execution, 
which lies for a person who has recovered 
debt or damages ; or upon a recognizance in 
any court, against a defendant that is not 
able to satisfy the same in his goods. It is 
directed to the sheriff, commanding him to 
make delivery of a moiety of the party’s 
lands, and all his goods, beasts of the plough 
excepted ; this is done by a jury, summoned 
to enquire what land the defendant had at 
the time of the judgment obtained; and the 
creditor, by virtue thereof, shall hold the 
said moiety of land delivered to him, un- 
til his whole debt and damages are paid and 
satisfied : and during that time he is tenant 
by elegit. This writ ought to be sued out 
within a year and a day after the judgment. 
All other writs of execution may be good, 
though not returned, except an elegit ; but 
that must be returned when executed, be- 
cause an execution is taken upon it, and that 
the court uray judge of the sufficiency of it. 
E L E 
ELEGY, a mournful and plaintive kind 
of poem. See Poetry. 
ELEMENT, in physiology, a term used 
by philosophers to denote the original com- 
ponent parts ot bodies, or those into which 
they are ultimately resolvable. 
It seems to have been an opinion establish- 
ed among philosophers in the remotest ages, 
that there are only four simple bodies ; 
namely, lire, air, water, and earth. To these 
they gave thfc name of elements, because they 
believed that all substances are composed 
ot these four. This opinion, variously mo- 
dilied indeed, was maintained by all the an- 
cient philosophers. We now know that all 
these supposed elements are compounds : 
fire is composed of caloric and light ; air of 
caloric, oxygen, and azotic gases ; water of 
oxygen and hydrogen ; and the earth in- 
cludes nine different substances. 
1 he doctrine ot the tour elements seems 
to have continued undisputed till the time 
ol the alchemists. J liese men having made 
themselves much better acquainted with the 
anal} sis ot bodies than the antient philoso- 
phers had been, soon perceived that the 
common doctrine was inadequate to explain 
ail the appearances that were familiar to 
them. They substituted a theory of their 
own m its place. According to them, there 
are three elements, of which alt bodies are 
composed; namely, salt, sulphur, and mer- 
cur ), "’hich they distinguish by the appel- 
lation of the tria prima. These principles 
were adopted by succeeding writers, parti- 
cularly by 1 aracelsus, who added two more 
to their number ; namely, phlegm and caput 
mortuum. 
It is not easy to say what the alchemists 
meant by salt, sulphur, and mercury ; pro- 
bably they had affixed no precise meaning 
to the words. Every thing which is fixed in 
the fire they seem to have called salt, every 
inflammable substance they called sulphur, 
and every substance which" flies off without 
burning was mercury. Accordingly they 
tell us, tiiat all bodies may by fire be de- 
composed into these three principles; the 
salt remains behind fixed, the sulphur takes 
lire, and the mercury flies off in the form of 
smoke. The phlegm and caput mortuum 
of Paracelsus were the water and earth of the 
ancient philosophers. 
Mr. Boyle attacked this hypothesis in his 
Sceptical Chemist, and in several of his other 
publications ; proving that the chemists com- 
prehended under each ot the terms salt, sul- 
phur, mercury, phlegm, and earth, substan- 
ces ot very different properties ; that there 
is no proof that ail bodies are composed of 
these principles ; and that these principles 
themselves are not elements but compounds. 
1 he refutation of Mr. Boyle was so com- 
plete, that the hypothesis of the tria prima 
seems to have been almost immediately 
abandoned by all parties. 
Meanwhile a very different hypothesis 
was proposed by Beecher in his Physica Sub- 
terranea ; an hypothesis to which we are 
indebted for the present state of the science, 
because he first pointed out chemical analy- 
sis as the true method of ascertaining the ele- 
ments of bodies. According to him, all. ter- 
restrial bodies are composed of water, air, 
and three earths; namely, the fusible, the 
inflammable or sulphureous, and the mercu- 
rial. The three earths, when.they are com- 
