trying them over
again in _the same_ place _with_ a Line, after the common way. And as to
that _Quaere_ of his, Whether a heavy Body descends in the same _Proportion_
of swiftness in _Water_, that it would do in _Air_? The Answer is, that it
does not; but that, after it is sunk one or two fathoms into the Water, it
has there arrived to its greatest swiftness, and keeps, after that, an
equal degree of velocity; the _Resistance_ of the water being then found
equal to the _Endeavour_ of the heavy Body downwards.

_Thirdly_, When the same _Author_ alledges that it must be known, when a
Light Body reascends from the bottom of the water to {230} 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 assent 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 _Num._ 9. where p. 149. 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