"To this I answer first, that nobody can suppose bodies to be put into the water without their being wet, nor do I wish to do more to the board than you may do to the ball. Moreover, it is not true that the board sinks on account of the weight of the water added in the washing; for I will put ten or twenty drops on the floating board, and so long as they stand separate it shall not sink; but if the board be taken out, and all that water wiped off, and the whole surface bathed with one single drop, and put it again upon the water, there is no question but it will sink, the other water running to cover it, being no longer hindered by the air. In the next place it is altogether false that water can in any way increase the weight of bodies immersed in it, for water has no weight in water, since it does not sink. Now, just as he who should say that brass by its own nature sinks, but that when formed into the shape of a kettle, it acquires from that figure a virtue of lying in the water without sinking, would say what is false, because that is not purely brass which then is put into the water, but a compound of brass and air; so is it neither more nor less false, that a thin plate of brass or ebony swims by virtue of its dilated and broad figure. Also I cannot omit to tell my opponents, that this conceit of refusing to bathe the surface of the board, might beget an opinion in a third person of a poverty of arguments on their side, especially as the conversation began about flakes of ice, in which it would be simple to require that the surfaces should be kept dry; not to mention that such pieces of ice, whether wet or dry, always float, and as my antagonists say, because of their shape.