"The soul's dark cottage, batter`d and decay'd,
Lets in new lights through chinks that Time has made."
I have, notwithstanding my infirmities, attended to scientific objects whenever it was in my power, and I have sent the Royal Society a paper which they will publish, on the peculiar Electricity of the Torpedo, which I think bears remotely upon the functions of life. I attend a good deal to Natural History, and I think I have recognised in the Mediterranean a new species of eel, a sort of link between the conger and the muræna of the ancients. I have no doubt Mr. Baker is right about the distinction between the conger and the common eel. I am very anxious to hear what he thinks about their generation. Pray get from him a distinct opinion on this subject. I am at this moment getting the eels in the markets here dissected, and have found ova in plenty. Pray tell me particularly what Mr. Baker has done; this is a favourite subject with me, and you can give me no news so interesting. My dear friend, I shall never forget your kindness to me. You, with one other person, have given me the little happiness I have enjoyed since my severe visitation.
I fight against sickness and fate, believing I have still duties to perform, and that even my illness is connected in some way with my being made useful to my fellow-creatures. I have this conviction full on my mind, that intellectual beings spring from the same breath of Infinite Intelligence, and return to it again, but by different courses. Like rivers, born amidst the clouds of heaven, and lost in the deep and eternal ocean—some in youth, rapid and short-lived torrents; some in manhood, powerful and copious rivers; and some in age, by a winding and slow course, half lost in their career, and making their exit through many sandy and shallow mouths. I hope to be at Rovigo about the first week in April. I travel slowly and with my own horses. If you will come and join me there, I can give you a place in a comfortable carriage, and can show you the most glorious country in Europe—Illyria and Styria, and take you to the French frontier before the beginning of autumn,—perhaps to England. If you can come, do so at once. I have two servants, and can accommodate you with every thing. I think of taking some baths before I return, in Upper Austria; but I write as if I were a strong man, when I am like a pendulum, as it were, swinging between death and life.
God bless you, my dear Poole.
Your grateful and affectionate friend,
H. Davy.
Pray remember me to our friends at Stowey.
His paper on the Electricity of the Torpedo, to which he alludes in the foregoing letter, appears to have been written shortly after he had finished his "Salmonia," as it is dated from Lubiana, Illyria, on the 24th of October, and it was read before the Royal Society on the 20th of November 1828, and published in the first part of the Transactions for 1829. It will be remembered, that this subject had long engaged his attention; and he expresses his surprise that the electricity of living animals should not have been an object of greater attention, both on account of its physiological importance, and its general relation to the science of electro-chemistry.
When Volta discovered his wonderful pile, he imagined he had made a perfect resemblance of the organ of the Gymnotus and Torpedo; and Davy observes, that whoever has felt the shocks of the natural and artificial instruments must have been convinced, as far as sensation is concerned, of their strict analogy.
After the discovery of the chemical power of the Voltaic instrument, he was naturally desirous of ascertaining whether this property was possessed by the electrical organs of living animals; for which purpose, he instituted various experiments, but he could not discover that such was the fact. Upon mentioning his researches to Signor Volta, with whom he passed some time in the summer of 1815, the Italian philosopher showed him a peculiar form of his instrument, which appeared to fulfil the conditions of the organs of the torpedo; viz. a pile, of which the fluid substance was a very imperfect conductor, such as honey or a strong saccharine extract, which required a certain time to become charged, and which did not decompose water, though it communicated weak shocks.
The discovery by Oersted of the effects of Voltaic electricity on the magnetic needle induced Davy to examine whether the electricity of living animals possessed a similar power. Having, after some trouble, procured two lively and recently caught Torpedoes, he passed the shocks from the largest of these animals a number of times through the circuit of an extremely delicate magnetic electrometer, but, although every precaution was used, not the slightest deviation of, or effect on, the needle could be perceived.