Archimedes Texts

165
example, we see them whil'st they are alive to fly upwards, a thing
altogether impossible for them to do as they are grave bodies;
whereas being dead they can onely fall downwards; and there
fore you hold that the reasons that are of force in all the kinds of
projects above named, cannot take place in birds: Now this is
very true; and because it is so, Sagredus, that doth not appear
to be done in those projects, which we see the birds to do. For if

from the top of a Tower you let fall a dead bird and a live one,
the dead bird shall do the same that a stone doth, that is, it shall
first follow the general motion diurnal, and then the motion of
descent, as grave; but if the bird let fall, be a live, what shall
hinder it, (there ever remaining in it the diurnal motion) from
soaring by help of its wings to what place of the Horizon it shall
please? and this new motion, as being peculiar to the bird, and
not participated by us, must of necessity be visible to us; and if
it be moved by help of its wings towards the West, what shall
hinder it from returning with a like help of its wings unto the
Tower. And, because, in the last place, the birds wending its
flight towards the West was no other than a withdrawing from
the diurnal motion, (which hath, supppose ten degrees of velocity)
one degree onely, there did thereupon remain to the bird whil'st
it was in its flight nine degrees of velocity, and so soon as it did
alight upon the the Earth, the ten common degrees returned to it,
to which, by flying towards the East it might adde one, and with
those eleven overtake the Tower. And in short, if we well con
sider, and more narrowly examine the effects of the flight of
birds, they differ from the projects shot or thrown to any part of
the World in nothing, save onely that the projects are moved by an
external projicient, and the birds by an internal principle. And

here for a final proof of the nullity of all the experiments before
alledged, I conceive it now a time and place convenient to
demonstrate a way how to make an exact trial of them all.
Shut your self up with some friend in the grand Cabbin between
the decks of some large Ship, and there procure gnats, flies, and
such other small winged creatures: get also a great tub (or
other vessel) full of water, and within it put certain fishes; let
also a certain bottle be hung up, which drop by drop letteth forth
its water into another bottle placed underneath, having a narrow
neck: and, the Ship lying still, observe diligently how those small
winged animals fly with like velocity towards all parts of the Ca
bin; how the fishes swim indifferently towards all sides; and how
the distilling drops all fall into the bottle placed underneath. And
casting any thing towards your friend, you need not throw it with
more force one way then another, provided the distances be equal:
and leaping, as the saying is, with your feet closed, you will reach