200 
HAROLD’S DISCUSSIONS. 
FALLING BODIES. 
Several years ago a friend and myself made some 
experiments upon falling bodies winch were not only 
interesting but profitable. First, we dropped some 
balls between the stairways in the corridors of the 
schoolhouse. The balls were of various sizes and 
substances—iron, wood, rubber, and marble. Then 
we tried coins and paper disks. We found that 
nearly all the heavier substances fell in about the 
same time, but the paper disks dropped much more 
slowly than the metal ones. If, however, we rolled 
the paper into little balls, so that the air could not 
offer so much resistance, they dropped more nearly in 
the same time as the heavier bodies. Galileo was the 
first to make similar experiments, using the famous 
Leaning Tower of Pisa from which to drop the 
bodies. 
We also tried the ‘‘guinea-and-feather ” experi¬ 
ment, first made in 1650. Into an inch-glass tube 
about four feet long we put a silver half-dime and a 
disk of paper of the same size. This we corked and 
hermetically sealed both ends, having first put a small 
glass tube through one of the corks. To this we at¬ 
tached the rubber tubing from an air-pump. We 
exhausted the air from the tube as completely as pos¬ 
sible, and closed it by doubling the rubber tubing on 
itself and tying it. Then we turned the lower end of 
the tube up quickly in a vertical position. The silver 
and paper fell to the bottom with the same velocity. 
We tried the same experiment by allowing the air 
