[' 100 ] 
A perfon, holding a phial in one hand properly lined 
and coated for electrical experiments, put his hand to the 
tail of the filh, while an affiftant, holding a fhort wire in 
one hand that communicated with the inlide of the 
phial, grafped the fifli near its head, fo as to receive a fe- 
vere lliock in his hand and arm, but it paffed no further. 
2 0. Two pieces of brafs wire, about the thicknefs of a 
crow’s quill, were fcrewed, in oppolite directions, into a 
frame of wood, fo as to come within lefs than the hun- 
dredth part of an inch of contaCt ; they were rounded at 
the point. I held the remote end of one of thofe wdres, 
while an affiftant held the other; in the mean wffiile, 
one of us putting his hand into the water near the eel, 
the other touched it fo as to receive a fliock. We re- 
peated this experiment fifteen or tw^enty times with dif- 
ferent fuccefs : when the points of the wires w^ere even 
fcrewed afunder, to the fiftieth part of an inch, the fliock 
never pafTed in the circle ; but when they were fcrewed 
up within the thicknefs of double-poft paper, the ffiocks, 
fuch of them as were fevere, iv ould pafs through us both; 
in which cafe, they doubtlefs leaped -from the point of 
one wire to the other, though w^e were not fo fortunate 
as to render the fpark generally vifible. But it ffiould be 
obferved, that the eel on w'hich we made thefe experi- 
ments, was not eafily provoked, and appeared to be in 
bad health. I have frequently pafted my hand along its 
back and fides from head to tail, and have lifted part of 
its body above the water, without tempting it to make 
any defence. Dr. Bancroft tells us, that fuch eels in 
Guiana 
