POWER FROM ELECTRIC EELS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13483, 6 July 1907, Page 5 (Supplement)

POWER FROM ELECTRIC EELS.

RESULT OF RECENT EXPERIMENTS

BY A VENEZUELAN SCIENTIST.. Phok. in: Esi'EKAxno, head of the Government College at Caracas. Venezuela, had a hundred average-sized electric eels captured and copper wire encircled around their necks just below the ears, and then connected them with a. motor, the sets remaining in the river near the shore. Their violent flopping and contortions proved a most uncertain sort of electric, current, so lie procured another hundred, and [nit them into a zinc bath which he had in his house and connected it with the motor, and found that they produced about 20horse power. With this he ran a mill and lighted up his house and grounds. The power from each eel sufficed to produce 45candle incandescent lights. Prof, de Espenindo also has found that a motor-ear can he run for 24 hours with

100 eels in a tank 3ft long and L|ft square, and weighing complete less than 2001b. It is claimed that the largest ocean steamers afloat can lie run with 200,000 eels, producing 40,000 horse-power, and contained in a" lank not larger than 10 by 10 by 15. This plant, of course, will have to be duplicated so that when the energy in one. is exhausted it can be hoisted from the hold to the deck so that the light from the sun can infuse- new energy into, it while the power is furnished by the relay plant.