“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.