222 M)\ cavendish on the Torpedo. 
It irmft be obferved, that in the foregoing machine, 
each loop confifted of the fame number of links, and the 
links of each loop were ftretched by the fame weight; 
fo that it required no more force to impell the electricity 
through one loop than another, which was my reafon 
for uling this machine rather than a plain chain. Con- 
iklerable irregularities occurred in trying the above ex- 
periments, and indeed all thofe with a chain; for it fre- 
quently happened, that the fhock would not pafs with 
the battery charged to a certain degree, when perhaps a 
minute after, it would pafs with not more than three- 
fourths of the charge. The irregularity, however, was 
not fo great but that, I think, I may be certain of the truth 
of the foregoing fads ; efpecially as the experiments were 
repeated leveral times. The uncertainty was at leal! as 
great in the experiments with lane’s eledrometer, when 
the knobs were brought fo clofe together, as is neceffary 
in experiments of this kind. 
It appears therefore, that if the whole battery, and a 
fingle row of it, are both charged in fucli a degree as to 
give a fhock of the fame ftrength, the fhock with the 
whole battery will pafs through fewer loops of the chain 
than that with the fingle row ; fo that, I think, there can 
be no doubt, but that if the battery had been large 
enough, I fhould have been able to give a fhock of the 
ufual ltrength, which yet would not have paffed through 
a fingle interval of the links of a chain. 
On the whole, I think, there feems nothing in the 
phenomena of the torpedo at all incompatible with elec- 
tricity ; 
