Underground Rivers - University of New Mexico

Chapter 10 -- Geophysical, Pnuematic and Electromagnetic Engines
La Spectacle de la Nature (1732) by Noël-Antoine Pluche (1688-
1761) was a work of eight volumes. From it,
The seawater deposits its salt on the sands below, and that it
rises little by little, distilling through the sands, and the pores of
the earth, which have such a power of attraction as it is not easily
accounted for, and that not only sand, but other earthly bodies
have the power of attracting water, I am well assured of from an
observation which occurred to me but this vary day. When I
threw a lump of sugar into a small dish of coffee, I found that the
water immediately ascended through the sugar and lay upon the
surface of it. Yesterday I observed likewise that some water
which had been poured at the bottom of a heap of sand
ascended to the middle of it. And this case, as I take it, is exactly
the same with respect to the sea and the mountains.
A problem with the sugar-cube analogy is that landscapes are not made of sugar. The table
below indicates typical heights of capillary rise in soils.
Capillary Rise (m)
Fine Gravel 0.002
Very Coarse Sand 0.006
Coarse Sand 0.013
Medium Sand 0.025
Fine Sand 0.043
Silt 0.105
Fine Silt 0.200
Relative to the height of mountains, capillary rise is negligible.
A more fundamental mechanical problem lies in the fact that capillary action will not expel fluid
from a conduit. If it could, we'd have a perpetual motion machine, albeit a small one. Pluche
didn't check if the water ran out the top of his sugar cube and down the side.
An underground river can not be driven by the pull of the soil.
Earthquakes
Springs
Ocean
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