=B.C. 588.=--The earliest reliable record of messages transmitted by the _sign of fire_ is to be found in the book of Jeremiah, vi. 1: “O ye children of Benjamin, gather yourselves to flee out of the midst of Jerusalem, and blow the trumpet in Tekoa, and set up a sign of fire in Beth-haccerem; for evil appeareth out of the north and great destruction.” REFERENCES.--Turnbull, “Electro-magnetic Telegraph,” 1853, p. 17; Knight’s “Mech. Dict.,” Vol. III. p. 2092; Penny and other Encyclopædias. =B.C. 341.=--Aristotle, Greek philosopher, says (“Hist. of Anim.,” IX. 37) that the electrical _torpedo_ causes or produces a torpor upon those fishes it is about to seize, and, having by that means got them into its mouth, feeds upon them. The _torpedo_ is likewise alluded to, notably by (Claudius) Plutarch, the celebrated Greek moralist, by Dioscorides, Pedacius, Greek botanist, referred to in Gilbert’s “De Magnete,” Book I. chaps. i, ii, and xiv; by Galen, illustrious Roman physician, who is also frequently alluded to in “De Magnete,” and by Claudius Claudian, Latin poet, who flourished at the commencement of the fifth century. Oppian describes (“Oppian’s Halieuticks of the nature of fishes and fishing of the ancients in five books,” lib. ii. v. 56, etc., also lib. iii. v. 149) the organs by which the animal produces the above effect, and Pliny (“Nat. Hist.,” Book 32, chap. i) says: “This fish, if touched by a rod or spear, at a distance paralyzes the strongest muscles, and binds and arrests the feet, however swift.” “The very crampe-fish _tarped_, knoweth her owne force and power, and being herself not benummed, is able to astonish others” (Holland “Plinie,” Book IX. chap. xlii.). “We, here, and in no other place, met with that extraordinary fish called the _torpedo_, or numbing fish, which is in shape very like the fiddle fish, and is not to be known from it but by a brown circular spot about the bigness of a crown-piece near the centre of its back” (Ausonius, “Voyages,” Book II. chap. xii.). REFERENCES.--“Encycl. Metr.,” IV. p. 41; “Encycl. Brit.,” article “Electricity”; Jos. Wm. Moss, “A Manual of Classical Biography,” London, 1837, Vol. I. pp. 105–186, for all the Aristotle’s treatises, also Commentaries and Translations; Jourdain (Charles et Amable), “Recherches ... traductions latines d’Aristotle,” Paris, 1843; Fahie, “Hist. of Elec. Teleg.,” p. 170; “Sci. Amer.,” No. 457, pp. 7301, 7302; “Aristotle,” by Geo. Grote, London, 1872; Humboldt, “Cosmos,” 1859–1860, Vols. I and II _passim_, Vol. III. pp. 13–15, 29–30, 124; “Journal des Savants,” for Feb. 1861, March and May 1872, also for Feb., May and Sept. 1893. Aristotle is alluded to in Gilbert’s “De Magnete,” at Book I. chaps. i. ii. vii. xv. xvi. xvii.; Book II. chaps. i.[5] iii. iv.; Book V. chap. xii.; Book VI, chaps. iii. v. vi.