Page:Discourse Concerning the Natation of Bodies.djvu/40

 or of Ebony, swims by vertue of its dilated & broad Figure: for the truth is, that it bares up without submerging, because that that which is put in the water, is not pure Brass or simple Ebony, but an aggregate of Brass and Air, or of Ebony and Air. And, this is not contrary unto my Conclusion, the which, (having many a time seen Vessels of Mettall, and thin pieces of diverse grave Matters float, by vertue of the Air conjoyned with them) did affirm, That Figure was not the Cause of the Natation or Submersion of such Solids as were placed in the water. Nay more, I cannot omit, but must tell my Antagonists, that this new conceit of denying that the Superficies of the Board should be bathed, may beget in a third person an opinion of a poverty of Arguments of defence on their part, since that such bathing was never insisted upon by them in the beginning of our Dispute, and was not questioned in the least, being that the Originall of the discourse arose upon the swiming of Flakes of Ice, wherein it would be simplicity to require that their Superficies might bedry: besides, that whether these pieces of Ice be wet or dry they alwayes swim, and as the Adversaries say, by reason of the Figure.

Some peradventure, by way of defence, may say, that wetting the Board of Ebony, and that in the superiour Superficies, it would, though of it self unable to pierce and penetrate the water, be born downwards, if not by the weight of the additionall water, at least by that desire and propension that the superiour parts of the water have to re-unite and rejoyn themselves: by the Motion of which parts, the said Board cometh in a certain manner, to be depressed downwards.

This weak Refuge will be removed, if we do but consider, that the repugnancy of the inferiour parts of the water, is as great against Dis-union, as the Inclination of its superiour parts is to union: nor can the uper unite themselves without depressing the board, nor can it descend without disuniting the parts of the nether Water: so that it doth follow, by necessary consequence, that for those respects, it shall not descend. Moreover, the same that may be said of the upper parts of the water, may with equall reason be said of the nether, namely, that desiring to unite, they shall force the said Board upwards.

Happily, some of these Gentlemen that dissent from me, will wonder, that I affirm, that the contiguous superiour Air is able to sustain that Plate of Brass or of Silver, that stayeth above water; as if I would in a certain sence allow the Air, a kind of Magnetick vertue of sustaining the grave Bodies, with which it is contiguous. To satisfie all I may, to all doubts, I have been considering how by some other sensible Experiment I might demonstrate, how truly that little contiguous and superiour Air sustaines those Solids, which being by