Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VI.djvu/506

 498 ELECTOR ELECTRIC FISHES forms long white crystals. The powdered root or the decoction in water is used in medicine as a tonic and stimulant. It is prescribed, if at all, in chronic diseases of the lungs. It is known in medicine by the name of inula. The dose of the powder is about a drachm ; of the decoction one or two fluid ounces. ELECTOR, or Prine* Elector (Germ. Kurfurst in the old German empire, the title of the princes who elected the emperor. The elec- toral privilege had its origin in the right as- sumed by the powerful nobles, who acquired supremacy in Germany after the extinction of the Carlovingian dynasty, of choosing one from their own number to be their head. In the ordinance issued by the emperor Charles IV. in 1356, known as the "golden bull," the archbishops of Mentz, Treves, and Cologne, the count palatine, the duke of Saxony, the margrave of Brandenburg, and the king of Bo- hemia were recognized as the persons in whom this right was vested. These electors formed an electoral college, had the rank of king though without the title, and were possessed of various important rights and privileges. The electoral rights of the count palatine hav- ing been transferred during the thirty years' war (1623) to the duke of Bavaria, an addi- tional or eighth electorate was created for the palatinate in 1648, which ceased to exist in 1777, when the house of Bavaria became ex- tinct. Brunswick-Ltineburg was created an electorate in 1692. (See HANOVER.) When the left bank of the Rhine was ceded to France in 1801 by the treaty of Luneville, changes in the electoral college became necessary, and were made in 1803. In place of the three ecclesias- tics who were previously members of the col- lege, the margrave of Baden, the landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, the duke of Wurtemberg, the grand duke of Tuscany, who was also archbish- op at first of Salzburg and afterward of Wtirz- burg, and the archbishop of Mentz, with the style of archchancellor of the German empire, were confirmed in the electoral right. The whole electoral system, however, soon after- ward (1806) came to an end upon the renun- ciation by the emperor Francis of the title of emperor of Germany. After that event most of the electors were designated by other titles. Hesse-Cassel ceased to be an electorate during the time it was merged in the new kingdom of Westphalia, but resumed the name upon the dissolution of that kingdom in 1813, and con- tinued to be known by it until annexed to Prus- | sia in 1866. In the United States electors are chosen by the people of each state to elect the president and vice president. Each state chooses as many electors as it has members in the two houses of congress ; and these electors meet at the capitals of their respective states, on the first Wednesday of December after the election, and cast their votes for president and vice president. These votes are then sealed up and carried by special messengers to Washing- ton, where they are opened and counted before both houses of congress, and the result pro- claimed by the president of the senate. ELECTRA, in Greek legend, daughter of Aga- memnon and Clytemnestra, and sister of Ores- tes, Iphigenia, and Chrysothemis. The crimes of her mother and j^Cgisthus threw her into great distress. Fearing for the life of her younger brother Orestes, she sent him under the protection of a slave to King Strophius of Phocis. When he was grown up to manhood she instigated him to avenge their father's death, and became his accomplice in the mur- der of their mother. She subsequently married her brother's friend Pylades, and became the mother of Medon and Strophius. Her tomb was shown in later times in Mycenae. There are different versions of her story, which was used by the Attic dramatists ^Eschylus, Sopho- cles, and Euripides, the " Electra " of Sopho- cles being one of his most famous plays. It has also furnished a subject for Racine, Alfieri, and Goethe among the moderns. ELECTRIC FISHES. The extraordinary modi- fication of the peripheral extremities of nerves by which electricity is generated and dis- charged is found in four genera of fishes, and in no other class of the vertebrata. The best known of these fishes are the torpedo and the electrical eel ; the former will be separately treated under its own name, and the latter, with two others for which there is no common name, in this article. The electrical eel (gym- notus electrics, Linn.), though apodal and eel- like in general appearance, differs from the eels in the completeness of the jaws, the presence of ribs, and the jointed fin rays ; it has neither ventral nor dorsal fin ; the anal reaches to the point of the tail, and like the pectorals is en- veloped in a thick skin which conceals the rays ; the skin is soft and scaleless ; the head is oval and flat, the mouth furnished with broad lips, and opening not quite as far as un- der the eyes ; the anterior nostrils are small tubes in a slight depression on the side of the Electrical Eel (Gymnotus electricus). lips ; the posterior are behind and above them ; lateral line distinct ; about 50 pointed teeth on the upper jaw, and 60 on the lower, a second row of about six behind the middle of the upper ones, and four small teeth in two rows along the symphysis; the vent opens before the