Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. V, October, 1850, Volume I.
General
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. V, October, 1850, Volume I.
American literature -- Periodicals; Civilization -- Periodicals; Culture -- Periodicals
Without entering into minute details, the peculiarity of the organic
apparatus of the Electrical Eel seems to consist in this, that it is
composed of numerous _laminæ_ or thin tendinous partitions, between which
exists an infinite number of small cells filled with a thickish gelatinous
fluid. These strata and cells are supplied with nerves of unusual size,
and the intensity of the electrical power is presumed to depend on the
amount of nervous energy accumulated in these cells, whence it can be
voluntarily discharged, just as a muscle may be voluntarily contracted.
Furthermore, there are, it would appear, good reasons to believe that
nervous power (in whatever it may consist) and electricity are identical.
The progress of science has already shown the identity between heat,
electricity, and magnetism; that heat may be concentrated into
electricity, and this electricity reconverted into heat; that electric
force may be converted into magnetic force, and Professor Faraday himself
discovered how, by reacting back again, the magnetic force can be
reconverted into the electric force, and _vice versâ_; and should the
identity between electricity and nervous power be as clearly established,
one of the most important and interesting problems in physiology will be
solved.
Every new discovery in science, and all improvements in industrial art,
the principles of which are capable of being rendered in the least degree
interesting, are in this Exhibition forthwith popularized, and become, as
it were, public property. Every individual of the great public can at the
very small cost of one shilling, claim his or her share in the property
thus attractively collected, and a small amount of previous knowledge or
natural intelligence will put the visitor in actual possession of
treasures which previously “he wot not of,” in so amusing a manner that
they will be beguiled rather than bored into his mind.
A TUSCAN VINTAGE.
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