THE VOLTAIC BATTERY AND THE GYMNOTUS.
“We boast of our Voltaic Batteries,” says Mr. Smee. “I should hardly be believed if I were to say that I did not feel pride in having constructed my own, especially when I consider the extensive operations which it has conducted. But when I compare my battery with the battery which nature has given to the electrical eel and the torpedo, how insignificant are human operations compared with those of the Architect of living beings! The stupendous electric eel in the Polytechnic Institution, when he seeks to kill his prey, encloses him in a circle; then, by volition, causes the voltaic force to be produced, and the hapless creature is instantly killed. It would probably require ten thousand of my artificial batteries to effect the same object, as the creature is killed instanter on receiving the shock. As much, however, as my battery is inferior to that of the electric fish, so is man superior to the same animal. Man is endowed with a power of mind competent to appreciate the force of matter, and is thus enabled to make the battery. The eel can but use the specific apparatus which nature has bestowed upon it.”
Some observations upon the electric current around the gymnotus, and notes of experiments with this and other electric fish, will be found in Things not generally Known, p. 199.