Page:Discourse Concerning the Natation of Bodies.djvu/20

18 hundred times as long as the other. Let the erroneous opinion of those therefore cease, who hold that a Ship is better, and easier born up in a great abundance of water, then in a lesser quantity, (this was believed by Aristotle in his Problems, Sect. 23, Probl. 2.) it being on the contrary true, that its possible, that a Ship may as well float in ten Tun of water, as in an Ocean.

But following our matter, I say, that by what hath been hitherto demonstrated, we may understand how, that

COROLLARY III.

For having seen how that the Moment wherewith such a Solid as grave in specie as the water, contrasts with the Moment of any Mass of water whatsoever, is able to retain it, even to its totall Submersion: without its ever ascending; it remaineth, manifest, that the water is far less able to raise it up, when it exceeds the same in specie: so, that though you infuse water till its totall Submersion, it shall still stay at the Bottome, and with such Gravity, and Resistance to Elevation, as is the excess of its Absolute Gravity, above the Absolute Gravity of a Mass equall to it, made of water, or of a Matter in specie equally grave with the water: and, though you should moreover adde never so much water above the Levell of that which equalizeth the Altitude of the Solid, it shall not, for all that, encrease the Pression or Gravitation, of the parts circumfused about the said Solid, by which greater pression, it might come to be repulsed, because, the Resistance is not made, but only by those parts of the water, which at the Motion of the said Solid do also move, and these are those only, which are comprehended by the two Superficies equidistant to the Horizon, and their parallels, that comprehend the Altitude of the Solid immerged in the water.

I conceive, I have by this time sufficiently declared and opened the way to the contemplation of the true, intrinsecall and proper Causes of diverse Motions, and of the Rest of many Solid Bodies in diverse Mediums, and particularly in the water, shewing how all in effect, depend on the mutuall excesses of the Gravity of the Moveables and of the Mediums: and, that which did highly import, removing the Objection, which peradventure would have begotten much doubting, and scruple in some, about the verity of my Conclusion, namely, how that notwithstanding, that the excess of the Gravity of the water, above the Gravity of the Solid, demitted into it, be the cause of its floating and rising from the Bottom to the Surface, yet a quantity of water, that weighs not ten pounds, can raise