more on electric eels, though, this story is surely apocryphal isn’t it?
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Text: Alexander von Humboldt (1850) Views of Nature Or, Contemplations of the Sublime Phenomena of Creation with Scientific Illustrations, translated by Elise C. Otté, Henry George Bohn
Photos: Peter Stackpole, 1952 – Palisades Park, NJ. from LIFE/Google.
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thanks Google!
microecos 
22 January 2009 at 11:32 am
“Such is the remarkable contest between horses and fish” is quite possibly the best thing I’ve read all week. Humboldt’s writing will always have current appeal.
29 January 2009 at 10:32 am
“current appeal” ?! Zing! That was a good one Rachel.
18 June 2013 at 8:49 am
[…] Thus, in these regions the electric fire breaks forth from the lowest depths of the waters. […]
23 July 2014 at 9:23 am
[…] Alexander von Humboldt contemplates sublime phenomena. Microecos presents his musings about the phenomenon of electric eels, along with a set of somewhat more recent (but still […]