"
"The seventy-four would, most undoubtedly, sink if it were heavier
than the weight of water it displaced; but this is not the case; wood
is generally lighter than water."
"The wood, yes; but the cannon, the cargo, and the crew?"
"You forget the cabooses, the cockpits, and the cabins, that do not
weigh anything. Allowing for everything, the weight of a ship, cargo
and all, is much lighter than its bulk of water, and consequently it
cannot sink."
"But how is it, then, that the immense bulk of a seventy-four moves so
easily in the water? One would think that its prodigious weight would
make it stick fast, and continue immoveable."
"When the seventy-four in question has displaced its weight of water,
its own weight is substituted for the water, and is in consequence
virtually annihilated; it does not, in point of fact, weigh anything
at all, and therefore is easily impelled by the wind."
"When there is any, understood," added Jack.
"And a yard or so of canvas," suggested Willis.
"True," continued Fritz, "a sail or two would be very desirable; these
instruments of propulsion do not appear, however, to have been used by
the ancients. We first hear of a sail being employed at the time when
Isis went in search of her husband Osiris, who was killed by his
brother Typhon, and whose quarters were scattered in the Nile.
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