72 GALILEO AND HIS JUDGES. 



from the Sun, than on that side which by the diurnal 

 revolution is turned round in the contrary direction. 

 Here, then, with the sea lying in its vast basin, and 

 revolving with other things on the surface of the 

 Earth from west to east every day, and thus ac- 

 celerated in its motion through space during twelve 

 hours and retarded during the other twelve hours, 

 you have on a large scale the same result that a 

 basin, half full of water, held in your hands and 

 checked by some retarding obstacle, gives you on 

 a very small and minute scale. Strange indeed it is 

 that a man who was acquainted with the laws of 

 motion sufficiently to know that anything thrown or 

 dropped in a vessel or a vehicle, partook of the 

 motion of the latter and followed its course (so long 

 as it remained within the vehicle) just as if the whole 

 were at rest that he should have failed to perceive 

 that the ocean, lying in its bed in that mighty 

 vehicle the Earth, would be carried round in the 

 daily rotation with an uniform velocity, unless 

 interfered with by the attraction of other bodies. 

 Simplicio, who for once is right, puts the difficulty, 

 that if the sea behaved in the way supposed, the 

 air would do so in the same way : the reply to which 

 is that the air being thin and light is less adherent 

 to the Earth than the water which is heavier, and 

 does not accommodate itself to the Earth's movements 

 as water does ; further, that where the air is not 

 hemmed in, as it were, by mountains and other 

 inequalities on the Earth's surface, it really is partially 



