Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XV.djvu/832

 802 TORPEDO Osgoode Hall library ; University college libra- ry; the Canadian institute (scientific) library; and the mechanics' institute library. Four newspapers are issued daily, and 17 weekly; and there are 15 literary, scientific, and theo- logical magazines, 11 monthly, 4 bimonthly, and 1 quarterly. The site of Toronto was se- lected by Governor Simcoe in 1794 as the seat of the provincial government ; and here the capital of Upper Canada remained till 1841, when Upper and Lower Canada (now Ontario and Quebec) formed a legislative union. From 1849 to 1858 Toronto was alternately with Que- bec the seat of the united government ; and in 1867, when the confederation was formed, it became the permanent capital of the province of Ontario. It was taken by the Americans in 1813, and the legislative buildings and archives w6re burned. It was known as York till 1834, when it was incorporated as a city. TORPEDO, the generic and popular name of the electric rays or skates of the family torpe- dinidm. They were called vapKt) by the Greeks and torpedo by the Latins ; the Germans call them Krampffisch, the French torpille, and the English cramp fish and numb fish. The body is smooth and rounded; the tail short and thick, cylindrical at the end and keeled on the sides ; teeth conical, sharp, and crowded ; ven- tral fins immediately behind the pectorals, dor- sals generally two and on the tail, and the caudal subtriangular. The electrical apparatus, which has given the name to the family, is arranged in two masses, one on each side of the skull, between this and the base of the pectorals; it is composed of a multitude of perpendicular gelatinous columns or hexago- nal prisms, separated by membranous parti- tions containing a fluid, freely supplied with blood, and receiving very numerous nervous filaments from the par vagum and trifacial nerves. There are about 20 species, arranged in seven genera, in the seas of all parts of the world; the best known are the species of the Mediterranean and the W. coast of Europe, and of the Atlantic coast of North America, all belonging to the genus torpedo (Dum.), in which the mouth is crescentic, the teeth not extending outward beyond the mar- gin of the lips, and spiracles distant from the eyes, with a circular fringe around the opening. The common torpedo of the Mediterranean (T. marmorata, Hud. ; T. Gahanii, Bonap.) is sometimes of a uniform brown, but generally marbled or spotted with darker; it rarely at- tains greater dimensions than 4 by 2 ft., or a weight of more than 50 Ibs. The spotted tor- pedo of the same sea (T. ocellata, Rud. ; T. narlce, Risso) is yellowish red, with one to five large, rounded, grayish blue spots, surrounded by a brownish circle, with a few whitish dots, and grayish white below. One (or both) of these species occurs on the "W. coast of Europe as far as Great Britain, and also, it is said, in the Per- sian gulf and Indian ocean ; they feed on small fish, keeping on the mud or sand at the bottom ; their flesh is eaten along the Mediterranean. Their electrical apparatus is analogous to the galvanic pile; John Hunter counted 1,200 col- umns in a very large fish, about 150 plates to the inch. The American torpedo (T. occiden- talis, Storer) attains a length of about 4| ft. and a width of 3 ft. ; it is dark brown above with a few black dots, and white beneath ; eyes very small, and spiracles directed outward and a little forward. In one specimen Prof. J. Wyman estimated the number of plates at be- tween 250,000 and 300,000, about 1,200 prisms in each battery, each 1 to 2 in. in height, and American Torpedo (Torpedo occidentalis). containing about 100 plates to the inch ; the interval between the plates was filled with an albuminous fluid, 90 per cent, water, contain- ing common salt in solution ; the ganglia from which the par vagum nerves arise are larger than the brain itself, indicating the great ner- vous power supplied to the battery. See ELEC- TRIC FISHES, and Lemons sur les plienomenea physiques des corps mvants, by C. Matteucci (Paris, 1847). TORPEDO, a machine for destroying hostile shipping, ponton bridges, &c., through the agency of subaqueous explosions ; that is, a military mine used under water. The germ of the device is to be found in floating powder vessels, which were first used at the siege of Antwerp in 1585, and received their latest ap- plication in the attempt upon Fort Fisher, N". 0., during the late civil war. David Bushnell, a captain of engineers in the American revo- lutionary army, made the first practical appli- cation of the idea to ordinary warfare. He devised a submarine boat to carry a torpedo, charged with 150 Ibs. of gunpowder, to be at- tached by a wood screw to the bottom of an enemy's vessel, and fired by a clockwork fuse. The first actual trial of the invention was made in 1776, when the boat, under the guidance of Sergeant Ezra Lee, was placed under the bot- tom of the Eagle, an English ship of war car- rying the flag of Lord Howe, lying at anchor in New York harbor. But the sergeant found it impracticable to attach the torpedo, which was cut adrift, and soon exploded. In 1777 Capt. Bushnell directed a drifting percussion