DR. GARTH--My lord, no doubt in this they are mistaken. The seamen are a superstitious people, they fancy that whistling at sea will occasion a tempest. I must confess I have never seen anybody thrown overboard, but I have tried some experiments on other dead animals, and they will certainly sink; we have tried this since we came here hither. Now, my lord, I think we have reason to suspect the seaman's evidence; for he saith that three-score pound of iron is allowed to sink the dead bodies, whereas six or seven pounds would do as well. I cannot think the commissioners of the navy guilty of so ill husbandry; but the design of tying weights to their bodies, is to prevent their floating at all, which otherwise would happen in some few days; therefore what I say is this, that if these gentlemen had found a cord, or the print of it, about the neck of this unfortunate gentlewoman, or any wound that had occasioned her death, they might then have said something. _Dr. Morley_ was called, and supported the view that a drowned body need not necessarily have much water in it, and that it need not float. He had tried experiments on two dogs the night before; he drowned them both, and dissecting one found no water in its stomach, while the other sank to the bottom of the water. _Dr. Woollaston_ and _Dr. Gelstrop_ both gave evidence to the same effect as the preceding witnesses. COWPER--Now, my lord, I would call Mr. William Cowper; and because of his name, I must acquaint your lordship that he is not at all acquainted with me, though I should be proud to own him if he were so; he is a man of great learning, and I believe, most people admit him to be the best anatomist in Europe. Mr. Cowper, will you give your opinion of this matter? _Mr. W. Cowper_[50] accordingly, premising that he would not only 'speak, from reason,' but give an account of experiments, stated that the symptoms described were consistent with drowning; this is a truth that no man can deny who is acquainted with any thing of this nature, that when the head of an animal is under water, the first time it is obliged to inspire (or draw in air) the water will necessarily flow into its lungs, as the air would do if it were out of the water; which quantity of water (if the dimensions of the windpipe and its branches in the lungs be considered), will not amount to three inches square, which is about three ounces of water. And this quantity of water would be sufficient to cause suffocation, and after suffocation, swallowing would become impossible. This he said, not by way of conjecture or hypothesis, but as the result of experiment.