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Updated: June 13, 2025
It is not only the torpedo or the Gymnotus electricus that can send us messages from the ocean. Whales in the sea can telegraph as well as senators on land, if they will only note the difference between long spoutings and short ones. And they can listen, too.
He found, however, that the experiment did not succeed more than three times with the same eel when out of the water, for the fourth time the shock was scarcely perceptible. The limbs even of the strongest man are benumbed, and he is struck down helpless, by a discharge from the battery of the gymnotus.
The discharges of the gymnotus, at first somewhat weak, become more and more violent, and there would come a time when, exhausted by the shocks, he would be rendered powerless. Benito, unable to resist the blows, half-dropped upon the sand.
Great was Manoel's emotion when Benito, drawn on to the platform, was laid there in a state of complete inertia, not a single exterior movement betraying that he still lived. Was not this a second corpse which the waters of the Amazon had given up? As quickly as possible the diving-dress was taken off him. Benito had entirely lost consciousness beneath the violent shocks of the gymnotus.
When the gymnotus was enfeebled by bad health, the lateral shock was imperceptible; and in order to feel the shock, it was necessary to form a chain, and touch the fish with both hands at once. Cavendish, in his ingenious experiments on an artificial torpedo, had well remarked these differences, depending on the greater or less energy of the charge.
The fish may with impunity be touched with a key, or any other metallic instrument; no shock is felt when a conducting or non-conducting body is interposed between the finger and the electrical organ of the torpedo. This circumstance proves a great difference between the torpedo and the gymnotus, the latter giving his strokes through an iron rod several feet long.
The Indians assert that when parrots are fed upon it they become tinged with yellow, and they often use it to render their papagaios more variegated. On the Amazonian waters is found the carapus, called by the Brazilians sarapo, belonging to the genus Gymnotus; though far smaller than the electric gymnotus. They are very numerous, and the most lively of the whole group.
These experiments furnish many results somewhat different from those I collected on the gymnoti. It is probable that the cause of these anomalies is owing rather to the inequality of electric power in the two fishes, than to the different disposition of their organs. Though the power of the torpedo cannot be compared with that of the gymnotus, it is sufficient to cause very painful sensations.
On substituting flame for the drop of water, the communication is interrupted, and is only re-established, as in the gymnotus, when the two points immediately touch each other in the interior of the flame.
We need not be surprised that what was observed in Sweden, on a single gymnotus only, we could not perceive in a great number of individuals in their native country. The electric action of animals being a vital action, and subject to their will, it does not depend solely on their state of health and vigour.
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