Man, beasts, birds, insects, fish, reptiles, trees, plants, water, in short, all substances organic and inorganic, possess each its own peculiar electricity.  In naming fish, I refer to each species, and not merely to those already known to you as electrical, and which have the power of emitting strong currents of their own peculiar electricity.  A huge fish, well known on your earth, supplies us with the most powerful of all electricities—­an electricity of immense value.  Docks sufficiently large are built expressly where the sea monster is driven, there to be subjected to the process by which he is made to yield up the electricity contained in his huge frame.

The different kinds of electricity collected and concentrated are stored ready for use in a large building called “The Electric Store-house,”—­ the electricities, secured in non-conducting pouches, being placed in separate compartments.  This is the more necessary, since explosions arise when antagonistic electricities come into contact with each other, and the commingling of sympathetic electricities deteriorates their quality.  For that reason care is taken to keep out light.  By the electricity of light most other electricities are affected.

To the storehouse are attached extensive grounds for experiments and for exhibitions, which at the same time delight and instruct the people.  I should observe that beautiful as well as humorous effects are produced by certain electrical combinations.  By means of sympathetic action living bodies can be attracted and raised without removing their inherent electricity, as you attract light substances with the magnet or the electricity known to you.

WILD BIRDS CAUGHT BY ELECTRICITY.

The kind of electricity by which the body to be operated upon will be best attracted is well understood in Montalluyah.  As a simple example, I will state that wild birds are caught by means of a sympathetic electricity.  For this purpose a long, hollow metal tube is used, at the bottom of which is a globe containing a powerful acid.  A receptacle at the top of the tube contains seeds much liked by the birds.  They hover about these seeds, and, when they are within a certain distance, a slight pressure on a wooden spring causes a drop of the acid in the globe to escape into the tube, and so to set in movement a current of electricity, which, being very sympathetic to the bird, acts as an attractor so powerful, that it cannot get away.  The tube is then gently lowered, and the birds are gradually drawn near to the earth, when a light net is thrown over the captives, and they are shaken into a cage-net at the bottom.  Calmed by the electricity, they do not flutter or struggle when thus secured.  It is very interesting to see the birds come nearer and nearer as the rod is lowered towards the ground.

For electrical purposes it is necessary to catch the birds alive.  Those required for food are also caught in the same way, that they may be killed without pain, as, indeed, are all birds and animals used for food.  Birds supply an electricity for lightening ponderous bodies; and by means of this, the immense blocks of iron-marble used for the construction of the Mountain Supporter were temporarily lightened, that they might be raised to their assigned places.