,223 
Mr. cavendish on the Torpedo. 
tricity; but to make a compleat imitation of them, would 
require a battery much larger than mine. It may be 
afked, where can fuch a battery be placed within the tor- 
pedo? I anfwer, perhaps it is not neceflary that there 
fliould be any thing analogous to a battery within it. 
The cafe is this ; it appears, that the quantity of ele&ric 
fluid, transferred from one fide of the torpedo to the 
other, muft be extremely great ; for otherwife it could 
not give a fhock, confidering that the force with which 
it is impelled is fo fmall as not to make it pafs through 
any fenfible fpace of air. Now if fuch a quantity of 
fluid was to be transferred at once from one fide to the 
other, the force with which it would endeavour to efcape 
would be extremely great, and fuflicient to make it dart 
through the air to a great diftance, unlefs there was 
fomething within it analogous to a very large battery. 
But if we fuppofe, that the fluid is gradually transferred 
through the electrical organs, from one fide to the other, 
at the fame time that it is returning back over the fur- 
face, and through the fubltance, of the reft of the body ; 
fo that the quantity of fluid on either fide is during the 
whole time very little greater or lefs than what is na- 
turally contained in it; then it is polfible, that a very 
great quantity of fluid may be transferred from one fide 
to the other, and yet the force with which it is impelled 
be not fuflicient to force it through a Angle interval of 
the links of a chain. There feems, however, to be room 
in the fifli for a battery of a fuflicient fize; for Mr. hun- 
ter has fhewn, that each of the prifmatical columns of 
i which 
