APRIL.] 
VOYAGE TO ENGLAND. 
507 
21st. Having heard or read that if a corked bottle 
were sunk fifty or sixty fathoms in the ocean, however 
tight the cork might be, the pressure without would 
drive the cork into the inside of the bottle, on men- 
tioning it to the captain, he readily consented to make 
an experiment,* which proved the accuracy of the 
assertion. 
* We drove a cork very tight into an empty bottle. The cork 
was so large that more than half of it could not be driven into the 
neck of the bottle. We then tied a cord round the cork which we 
also fastened round the neck of the bottle, to prevent the cork 
sinking down, and put a coat of pitch over the whole. By means 
of lead we sunk it in the water. When it was let down to about the 
depth of fifty fathoms, the captain said he was sure that the bottle 
had instantaneously filled ; on which he drew it up, when we 
found the cork driven down into ih-e inside, and of course the 
bottle was full of water. 
We prepared a second bottle exactly in the same way, only with 
the addition of a sail needle being passed through the upper part 
of the cork, which rested on the mouth of the bottle, and all com- 
pleatly pitched over. When about fifty fathoms down, the captain 
called out as before, that he felt by the sudden increase of weight 
that the bottle was filled, on which it was drawn up. We were not 
a little surprised to find the cork in the same position, and no part 
of the pitch broken, ^et the bottle was full of water. None of us 
could conjecture how the water got in. There was no part of the 
pitch open that would admit the point of a needle. Supposing 
the pitch and cork both porous, it does not appear easy to 
account for a quart of water passing so instantaneously through 
£0 small a space — the porousness of the glass seems to be the only 
consideration by which we can account for the fact. 
3 T .2 
