this resistance is instrumental in determining whether a body
placed in water will float or sink. Galileo contends that 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