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“Jheif Nope to SOLVE the KIDDIE
of the ELECTRIC EEL OBggsß^
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By Thomas M. Johnson
N expedition has just sailed for
South America, on a new quest
after the secret of human life.
’ It is an expedition not of Con-
A
quis tad ores but of scientists who hope
to solve, with novel apparatus, the rid
dle of that strange creature, the elec
tric eel
How can its sluggish, eight-foot body
shoot forth an electric current that will
light a light, paralyze iishes or knock
over a horse?
The answer may startle the world
by solving a greater riddle: How does
the human body generate a similar
electric current and send it along the
nerves? Modern medicine does not
know, so the answer is being sought in
the waters of the Amazon river.
There the explorer-scientists will risk
electrocution by the astonishing river
monsters, while investigating theic
strange power by means of new inven
tions, also electrically operated. They
will signal to the eels with an “eel
caller,” and listen to the eels’ signals
through telephones.
Incredible, but true, experiments
along these lines have already been
made at the New York Aquarium by
Christopher W. Coates, authority on
tropical fish; Prof. Richard T. Cox of
the physics department of New York
University, and Robert S. Mathews of
Columbia University and the American
Museum of Natural History. Professor
Cox and Mr. Mathews left Feb. 1 for
Brazil, enthusiastic over the prospect
of significant new discoveries about
this living submarine storage battery.
What an interesting creature is elec
trophorus electricus!. He draws more
sightseers than any denizen of the deep
in the Aquarium. When a fish is thrown
into the tank, the great eel comes to
life. A convulsive movement shudders
along his body; his tail lashes. Then he
darts forward. In the pink mouth gap
ing in his blunt brown head, he seizes
the fish—which he has electrocuted by
the electric current he has sent through
the water. Then, slowly, the eel swal
lows the fish whole.
WERE he in his native Amazon, he
would shock insensible a whole
shoal of fish, then as they floated, bel
lies up, he would pick out the choicest
morsels one by one. After he had
wolfed down the last, the survivors
would come to life and swim away.
Impossible? So said some New York
ers until they had stood before the
Aquarium tank and seen the eel light
an electric light! It is a two-watt bulb,
arid it takes 85 volts to light it. Yet
thousands of Aquarium visitors from
New York and everywhere m the
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country have seen it flicker on and off,
in response to the powerful discharges
of the electric eel.
A creature of infinite variety, as Mr.
Coates has demonstrated by becoming
more intimately acquainted with elec
trophorus electricus, probably, than
any American.
With a long hook in one hand, Mr.
Coates guides the eel toward him. With
the other hand, he reaches down and
lifts him from the water. The long
brown body scarcely wriggles, which is
just as well, though the hook is rubber
covered and so are Mr. Coates’ hands,
with gauntleted gloves.
“One big one shot me eight feet into
the air, and knocked me cold,” says Mr.
Coates. “You can't fool with these
babies, even if they are pretty tame.”
Carefully he lowers this particular
“baby” onto the “eel cradle.” This de
vice of his is a piece of hard rubber
pipe, halved to make a small trough.
Its bottom is ringed with tin bands at
intervals that are marked in centi
meters. At one end of the cradle is
placed the eel’s head—and then begins
an odd performance.
Gently and carefully, but unmistak
ably, Mr. Coates shampoos the eel. With
his rubber-gauntleted hand, he rubs its
glistening head, until into even that
slow brain penetrates the idea that
something is going on that is so un
usual as to call for an electric dis
charge.
The eel thrashes. By some process
not yet fully understood, the current
passes out from his body.
It shoots through the tin bands to
wires that are plugged in from a black,
box-like apparatus somewhat like a
camera, on whose face appears a trans
lucent white dial. And suddenly across
that dial dance tiny light green lines,
weaving graceful, skipping patterns.
They are made by the electric current
from the eel, distributed through the
switchboard of the eel cradle.
r i' , HE cradle is divided into sections
and marked off in centimeters, to
show whence comes this mysterious
“juice”; from what part of the eel’s
body lying on the cradle.
There is an eel telephone, too. This
interesting apparatus is a T-bar of glass
tubing, IVz feet long. At the extremi
ties of the top bar are copper elec
trodes. Wires run through the tubing,
and there are headphones. With these
clamped over his ears, whoever dips the
T-bar into eel-infested water can hear
sharply an intermittent but distinct
crackling sound the eels’ electrical
discharges.
Dr, Cox may not only listen to the
eels on the marshes of the lower Ama
zon; he may talk to them —also by
telephone.
He will use an “eel caller" or “arti
ficial eel” that Mr. Coates has also
tried out in the Aquarium. It is an
electrical apparatus that can discharge
500 volts in a thousandth of a second,
almost exactly as the eel discharges.
And when, tiu ouch connecting wires, it
Listening in on the eel’s ,
"conversation” (above))
with a T-bar and head- i
phones.
Stirred to action by a rub
ber-tipped stick, the eel
(left) lights a two-watt
bulb. (Photo copyright,
Pathe News, Inc.j
signals into the water, will the eel
“talk back”?
Can it be that eels signal to one an
other under water? Are they not only
living submarine power plants and
death rays, but wireless plants as well?
Dr. Cox and Mr. Coates have found
hints of it in their studies of captive
eels in tanks. Now they want to see
how “wild” eels act.
How does the eel shoot forth this
current that stuns fishes and knocks
about able-bodied men, without shock
ing his own kind, too? Or indeed, with
out electrocuting himself? And just
how does he generate such a current?
The amazing answer is: “With his
muscles!”
The electrophorus electricus is one of
the most muscular of creatures. Five
sixths of his six or eight feet are
muscles. These muscles are among the
miracles of science. They include spe
cial electrical organs that are in three
pairs; a veritable living bank of dry
batteries, within a flickering tail.
Like dry batteries, they store chemi
cals that produce electricity. By some
mysterious means they can discharge
that electricity at will. An eel’s power
may be measured in hundreds of volts
—perhaps 300.
A human being is electrically pow
ered, too, with the same sort of elec
tricity as the eel, which is just the sort
that lights our lights and rings our bells
and runs our radios; but the human
being’s electric power can b ' measuied
only in thousandths of a volt.