214 
TORPEDO. 
a round spiracle, with six small cutaneous rays on 
the inner circumference; the mouth was small, 
and set with minute spicular teeth ; the colour of 
the body cinereous-brown above and white beneath. 
This appears to be the common size of our tor- 
pedo; but it occasionally grows much larger, speci- 
mens having been taken of the weight of fifty, sixty, 
and even eighty pounds. 
Naturalists are much indebted to Mr. Walsh for 
his ingenious experiments relative to the electrical 
property of the torpedo: these experiments were 
conducted at Rochelle in France, in the year 1 / 72 , 
and the effects produced were found to be absolutely 
electrical, being subject to the same laws as electri- 
city. The sensations likewise occasioned by the 
one and the other are precisely similar. Not only 
the shock, but the numbing sensation, which the 
animal sometimes dispenses, may be exactly imi- 
tated with the Leyden phial regulated by an elec- 
trometer, whose rod, to produce the latter effect, 
must be brought almost into contact with the prime 
conductor which joins the phial. Each effort of 
the animal to give the shock is accompanied by a 
depression of his eyes, by which even his attempts 
to give it to non-conductors can be observed ; the 
rest of his body is almost motionless. Mr. Walsh 
has taken no less than fifty of the above-mentioned 
shocks from an insulated torpedo in the space of 
a minute and a half. All the experiments seem 
to prove that the effect the animal produces 
originates in a compressed elastic fluid, restoring 
