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Show ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 153 and Cabuliare. Large vessels sail across the country over the Steppe for 40 or 50 nliles. (4~) p. 39.-a To the mountain platemt of Antisana." The great mountain plain or plateau surrounding the volcano of Antisana is 2107 toises (13,4 73 English feet) above the level of the sea. The atmo pheric pressure at this elevation is so small that the wild cattle, when hunted with dogs, bleed from the nose and mouth. (~~) p. 39.-" Bem and Rast1·o." I have described the capture of the Gymnoti in detail in another place. (Observations de Zoologie et d' Anatomie comparee, vol. i. pp. 83-87; and Relation historique, t. ii. pp. 173-190.) M. Gay Lussac and I found the experiment without a circuit succeed perfectly with a living Gymnotus, which was still very vigorous when brought to Paris. The discharge is solely dependent on the will of the animal. We did not see any spark, but other physicists have done so on several occasions. ( 43) p. 40.- a Awakened by the cO'I'I.tact of moist, dissim1"lar particles." In all parts of organic bodies, dissimilar substances are in contact with each other : in all, solids are associated with fluids. Thus, wherever there are organization and life, there is also electric tension or the play of the Voltaic pile, as the experiments of Nobili and Matteucci, and especially the latest admirable labors of Emil duBois, teach us. The last named physicist has succeeded in "manifesting the presence of the electric muscular current in living and wholly uninjured animal bodies;" he shows that "the human body, through the medium of a copper wire, can cause a magnetic needle at a distance to be deflected at pleasure, first in one and then in the opposite direction." (Untersuchungen tiber thierische Electricetat, von Emil du Bois-Reymond, 1848, bd. i. s. xv.) I have witnessed these movements produced at pleasure, and have had the gratification of seeing thereby great and unexpected light thrown on phenomena to which I bad laboriously and hopefully devoted several years of my youth. |