hat water is non-resistant, and that bodies
float or sink in virtue of their respective weights. This, of course, is
merely a restatement of the law of Archimedes. But it remains to explain
the fact that bodies of a certain shape will float, while bodies of the
same material and weight, but of a different shape, will sink. We shall
see what explanation Galileo finds of this anomaly as we proceed.

In the first place, Galileo makes a cone of wood or of wax, and shows
that when it floats with either its point or its base in the water, it
displaces exactly the same amount of fluid, although the apex is by its
shape better adapted to overcome the resistance of the water, if that
were the cause of buoyancy. Again, the experiment may be varied by
tempering the wax with filings of lead till it sinks in the water, when
it will be found that in any figure the same quantity of cork must be
added to it to raise the surface.

"But," says Galileo, "this silences not my antagonists; they say that
all the discourse hitherto made by me imports little to them, and that
it serves their turn; that they have demonstrated in one instance, and
in such manner and figure as pleases them best--namely, in a board
and in a ball of ebony--that one when put into the water sinks to the
bottom, and that the other stays to swim on the top; and the matter
being the same, and the two bodies differing in nothing but in figure,
they affirm that with all perspicuity they have demonstrated and
sensibly manifested what they undertook. Nevertheless, I believe, and
think I can prove, that this very experiment proves nothing against my
theory. And first, it is false that the ball sinks and the board not;
for the board will sink, too, if you do to both the figures as the words
of our question require; that is, if you put them both in the water; for
to be in the water implies to be placed in the water, and by Aristotle's
own definition of place, to be placed imports to be environed by the
surface of the ambient body; but when my antagonists show the floating
board of ebony, they put it not into the water, but upon the water;
where, being detained by a certain impediment (of which more anon), it
is surrounded, partly with water, partly with air, which is contrary to
our agreement, for that was that bodies should be in the water, and not
part in the water, part in the air.

"I will not omit another reason, founded also upon experience, and, if
I deceive not mysel