Now, can you calculate the
weight of the water that is on your back and pressing on your sides
when you swim?"
"No, I cannot."
"You are not sufficiently up in arithmetic to do that, Willis?"
"No."
"Nor am I either, Willis; but let me ask you how it is that the waves
do not carry you along with them?"
"Because one wave neutralises the effect of another."
"Very good; but how is it that these ponderous waves, coming down upon
you, do not crush you to atoms by their mere weight?"
"Well, I suppose that liquids do not operate in the same way as
solids: perhaps there is something in our bodies that counterbalances
the effect of the water."
"Very likely; and if such be the case as regards water, may it not be
so also as regards air?"
"But I do not feel air; whereas, if I go into water, I not only feel
it, but taste it sometimes, and I cannot force my way through it
without considerable exertion."
"That is because you are organized to live in air and not in water.
You ask the smallest sprat or sticklebake if it does not, in the same
way feel the air obstruct its progress."
"But would the stickleback answer me, Master Fritz?"
"Why not, if it is polite and well bred?"
"By the way, Willis," inquired Jack, "do you ever recollect having
lived without breathing?"
"Can't say I do.
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