Daniel R. Goss  age 11. of Columbus„ Ohio.

Can  an  electric eel give you a shock?

An electric eel can most certainly deliver a shock. That is the main reason for his storage battery. He can send out a shock powerful enough to stun a grown man. Naturally this would happen in the water. because that is where the: electric eel lies. The unlucky man might become unconscious and drown. This is one reason why it is dangerous to fall out of a boat; along the backwaters of the Amazon or Orinoco rivers. For these are the native watery of the electric eel.

A fair sized house needs wiring to carry about 110 volts of electricity. A nine foot electric eel carries 200 to 300 volts of electricity in his storage battery. He often carries much. much more. Maybe we could use him to light our homes and run the toasters. and vacuum cleaners. Ail he needs is a home of slow moving fresh water with plenty of small fish and frogs. It seems a good idea for cutting down on the electric bill.

But it wouldn’t work. Our homes need a steady supply of electricity..

The electric eel turns his power on sand off to suit himself. The power is discharged in short spurts. He can keep this going for some time. But the discharges may vary between one 30th to one 300th part of a second. Apart from this irregular flow of current. there is another reason why Mr„ Eel cannot be made to work for us. Most of our household gadgets are fixed to run on A.C: current. The electric sell discharges only direct current. DC.

Actually. the electric eel is no relative to the wrigg1y squirmy eels. He is cousin to the minnow. the carp sand the catfish. One catfish cousin of the Nile river also gives off electric shocks. But of all the creatures armed with electric batteries. none has such power as the electric eel. of South America.

A fair sized electric eel is between 3 and 4 feet.. But monsters of 9 feet are not unknown. Only one fifth of the long. lazy fellow is body. The rest is tail. In color he is drab grey with a red or yellowish marking on his underside. He spends a lot of time dozing he can swim either backwards or forwards chooses. Strange to says he breathes air. This he comes up to gulp from time to time.‑ He suffocates if he stays under water for as long as ten minutes:

The electric eel' is without a backbone  without teeth and without scales. After all. he needs only his; electricity to defend himself. The battery is; in his tail. The flesh which generates the amazing power is rather like the nerve tissue of other animal. He simply electrocutes frogs and small fish and eats them at his leisure.

It is thought that the electric impulses are also used as a kind of radar. Milder impulses are set going whenever the electric eel moves about. He may use these to detect solid objects ‑in his path. Baby eloctric eels are born in the swamp country after the rainy season. The parents leave the rivers at this time and return with their broods. Countless tiny eels swim around the heads of their parents. They do not go off alone. until they are around 6 inches long. Only their ears they give off enough of a shock to defend themselves.