DRAWING OUT AND CONCENTRATING ELECTRICITIES FOR USE.
WE discovered the means of drawing out the various electricities from the body to which they are appetent, and of concentrating and preserving them for use.
Man, beasts, birds, insects, fish, reptiles, trees, plants, water, in short, all substances organic and inorganic, possess each its own peculiar electricity. In naming fish, I refer to each species, and not merely to those already known to you as electrical, and which have the power of emitting strong currents of their own peculiar electricity. A huge fish, well known on your earth, supplies us with the most powerful of all electricities—an electricity of immense value. Docks sufficiently large are built expressly where the sea monster is driven, there to be subjected to the process by which he is made to yield up the electricity contained in his huge frame.
The different kinds of electricity collected and concentrated are stored ready for use in a large building called "The Electric Store-house,"— the electricities, secured in non-conducting pouches, being placed in separate compartments. This is the more necessary, since explosions arise when antagonistic electricities come into contact with each other, and the commingling of sympathetic electricities deteriorates their quality. For that reason care is taken to keep out light. By the electricity of light most other electricities are affected.
To the storehouse are attached extensive grounds for experiments and for exhibitions, which at the same time delight and instruct the people. I should observe that beautiful as well as humorous effects are produced by certain electrical combinations. By means of sympathetic action living bodies can be attracted and raised without removing their inherent electricity, as you attract light substances with the magnet or the electricity known to you.