_Skating Problem_ (Vol. vii., p. 284.).--The Query of your correspondent
recalls the one said to have been put by King James to the members of
the Royal Society: "How is it," said the British Solomon, "that if two
buckets of water be equipoised in a balance, and a couple of live bream
be put into one of them, the bucket containing the fish does not
overweigh the other?" After some learned reasons had been adduced by
certain of the philosophers, one of them said, "Please your Majesty,
that bucket would be heavier by the exact weight of the fish." "Thou art
right," said the sapient king; "I did not think there had been so much
sense among you." Now, although I do not mean to say that A SKATER
propounds for elucidation what he knows to be a fallacy, yet I do assert
that he is mistaken as to the fact alleged. He recommends any one who is
"incredulous" to make the trial--in which case, the experimenter would
undoubtedly find himself in the water! I advise an appeal to common
sense and philosophy: the former will show that a person in skates is
not lighter than another; the latter, that ice will not fracture less
readily beneath the weight of an individual raised on a pair of steel
edges, than one on a pair of flat soles--_all other circumstances being
the same_; the reverse, indeed, would be the fact. The true explanation
of the "problem" is to be found in the circumstance, that "a skater,"
rendered confident by the ease with which he _glides_ over ice on which
_he_ could _not stand_, will often also "stand" securely on ice which
would break under the restless feet of a person in his shoes only. This
has always appeared to be the obvious reason for the apparent anomaly to
one who is