THE OCEAN WORLD. 
530 
able, from its singular physical properties, is the Electrical Eel, Gym- 
notus eleeirkus (Fig. 363). These properties enable the gymnotus 
to arrest suddenly the pursuit of an enemy, or the flight of its prey, to 
suspend on the instant every movement of its victim, and subdue it 
by an invisible power. Even the fishermen themselves are suddenly 
struck and rendered torpid at the moment of seizing it, while nothing 
external betrays the mysterious power possessed by the animal. 
The electrical properties of the gymnotus were reported lor the 
first time by Van Berkal. The astronomer Richer, who had been 
sent to Cayenne in 1671 by the Academy of Sciences of Paris, on 
the Geodesic Survey, first made known Ihe singular properties of the 
American fish. “ I was much astonished,” says this author, to see 
a fish some three or four feet in length, and resembling an cel, deprive 
of all motion for a quarter of an hour the arm and neighbouring parts 
which touched it. I was not only an ocular witness ot the effect pro- 
duced by its touch ; but 1 have myself felt it, on touching one ol 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 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 tor seventy 
years, when the traveller Condamine spoke in bis ‘ Voyage en 
Amerique ” 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 another physician, the Dutch 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 tinsel 
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.” 
Many experiments followed these ; but we are indebted to Alexander 
von Humboldt for the first precise account of this very curious fish- 
The celebrated naturalist read to the Institute of France an important 
memoir upon the electrical eel from Bonpland’s observations, the sub' 
stance of which we shall give here. 
