This figure, twenty-four pounds, the difference between sixty-two and thirty-eight pounds, then represents the maximum buoyant power of a cubic foot of wood in water. It is the difference between the weight of the wood block and the weight of the water it displaces. If any weight less than this is added to that of the wood, the block will float, projecting above the water’s surface more or less, according to the amount of weight buoyed up. It will not rise entirely from the water, because to do this it would need to be lighter, not only than water, but than air.
One Cubic Foot of Wood Loaded in Water
Buoyancy in Air
There are gases, if not woods, lighter than air: among them, coal gas and hydrogen. A “bubble” of any of these gases, if isolated from the surrounding atmosphere, cannot sink but must rise. At the same pressure and temperature, hydrogen weighs about one-fifteenth as much as air; coal gas, about one-third as much. If a bubble of either of these gases be isolated in the atmosphere, it must continually rise, just as wood immersed in water will rise when liberated. But the wood will stop when it reaches the surface of the water, while there is no reason to suppose that the hydrogen or coal gas bubbles will ever stop. The hydrogen bubble can be made to remain stationary if it is weighted down with something of about fourteen times its own weight (thirteen and one-half times, accurately). Perhaps it would be better to say that it would still continue to rise slowly because that additional something would itself displace some additional air; but if the added weight is a solid body, its own buoyancy in air is negligible.
Buoyant Power of Hydrogen
Our first principle is, then, that at the same pressure and temperature, any gas lighter than air, if properly confined, will exert a net lifting power of (n-1) times its own weight, where n is the ratio of weights of air and gas per cubic foot.
