_Electricity of the Torpedo.
[.}' our. Frank. Inst., unnecessary illustration by a curve, which, I think, has rather contributed to obscure the subject. For the remaining part I am indebted principally to Chauvenet's Least Squares, and Fischer's Geodesy. Whatever is not found in these three authors I claim as original.
Electricity of the Torpedo.--M. Marcy was led, by some experiments which he made in !871, to investigate the relations between the voluntary electric discharge of the torpedo and the voluntary muscular contractions of animals. By the aid of M. Marcel Deprez's electro-magnetic signal, which is able to register more than 600 successive electric currents per second, he found that the torpedo shock is a complex act, formed of successive currents, which follow each other at very short intervals, commonly ranging between ~ and ~ of a second. The effects of gradual fatigue upon the discharges, the varying intensity of the current, the correspondence between primary and induced currents, and the analogy to the series of efforts which produce ordinary muscular contraction, are all illustrated by M. Marey's diagr~ms.--C. R., Jan. 22. C.