Page:Philosophical Transactions - Volume 001.djvu/241

 the top, in what proportion of time and swiftness it rises. He seems not to have considered, that in this Experiment, the times of the descent and ascent are both taken and computed together; so that for this purpose, there needs not that nicety, he discourses of.

Fourthly, Whereas it is further excepted, That this way of Sounding Depths is no new Invention; The answer is ready, that neither is it pretended to be so, in the often quoted Tract; it being only intimated there, that the manner of performing it, as it is in that place represented and described, is new.

Lastly, To rectifie the said Author's mistake, as if the instrument of fetching up Water from the bottom of the Sea, were chiefly contriv'd, to find out, Whether in some places of the Sea any Sweet Water is to be met with at the bottom: There will need no more, than to direct him to the Book it self. towards the end, the First use of this Bucket is express'd to be, to know the degrees of Saltness of the Water according to its nearness to the top or bottom; or rather to know the constitution of the Sea-water in several depths of several Climates, which is a matter, much better to be found out by Trial, than Discourse. Neither is it any where argued in that Book (as the French Journal insinuates) that, because sweet water is found at the Bottom of the Sea of Baharem, therefore it must, but only that it may, be found so elsewhere. And since the same Journal admits, that those Sweet water-springs, which yield the sweet water, that is found at the said place, have been formerly on the Continent, far enough from the Sea, which hath afterwards covered them. It will be, it is presumed, lawful to ask, Why in many other places there may not be found the like? And besides, how we do know, but that there may be in other parts, Eruptions of large Springs at the bottom of the Sea, as well as there?

--