f, conclusive against the notion that figure, and
the resistance of the water to penetration, have anything to do with
the buoyancy of bodies. Choose a piece of wood or other matter, as,
for instance, walnut-wood, of which a ball rises from the bottom of the
water to the surface more slowly than a ball of ebony of the same
size sinks, so that, clearly, the ball of ebony divides the water more
readily in sinking than the ball of wood does in rising. Then take
a board of walnut-tree equal to and like the floating one of my
antagonists; and if it be true that this latter floats by reason of the
figure being unable to penetrate the water, the other of walnut-tree,
without a question, if thrust to the bottom, ought to stay there, as
having the same impeding figure, and being less apt to overcome the said
resistance of the water. But if we find by experience that not only the
thin board, but every other figure of the same walnut-tree, will return
to float, as unquestionably we shall, then I must desire my opponents
to forbear to attribute the floating of the ebony to the figure of the
board, since the resistance of the water is the same in rising as in
sinking, and the force of ascension of the walnut-tree is less than the
ebony's force for going to the bottom.

"Now let us return to the thin plate of gold or silver, or the thin
board of ebony, and let us lay it lightly upon the water, so that it may
stay there without sinking, and carefully observe the effect. It will
appear clearly that the plates are a considerable matter lower than the
surface of the water, which rises up and makes a kind of rampart round
them on every side. But if it has already penetrated and overcome the
continuity of the water, and is of its own nature heavier than the
water, why does it not continue to sink, but stop and suspend itself in
that little dimple that its weight has made in the water? My answer is,
because in sinking till its surface is below the water, which rises up
in a bank round it, it draws after and carries along with it the air
above it, so that that which, in this case, descends in the water is not
only the board of ebony or the plate of iron, but a compound of ebony
and air, from which composition results a solid no longer specifically
heavier than the water, as was the ebony or gold alone. But, gentlemen,
we want the same matter; you are to alter nothing but the shape, and,
therefore, have the goodness to remove this air, which m