Underground Rivers - University of New Mexico

Chapter 11 -- Straining the Salt
"The ocean does not penetrate under the earth" substantially contradicts da Vinci's writings of
Chapters 7 and 8 in support of underground rivers. While da Vinci's critique of Pliny is sound, his
own thoughts meandered.
Da Vinci's contempory, Felix Faber (1441-1502) drew attention to the connection between water
sinking in mountain dolines and springs in the valleys below. From Faber's Historiae Suevorum
(1489),
Therefore Nature has ready in the earth certain hollows in which the waters collect and... from
whence they flow further through veins to the place where they have to flow out. These are
especially noticeable in the Swabian AIps,, where one sees many cup-shaped pits in the
ground, into which the rain and the snow water penetrate and sink into underground lakes from
whence it gushes forth again.
At the same time, however, he thought some springs also fed with desalinated sea water.
Incapable of bearing the severity of the sea, it [spring water] comes concealed in the veins of
the earth and penetrates in inexplorable routes into the narrowest crevices of the earth and
rock, so that it leaves behind it the bitter skin with which it was clad in the sea, behind on the
sand, the rocks and the earth. And thus it eventually comes again to the place, from whence it
started, and emerges sweet, clear and drinkable out of the earth, to flow again according to the
word of the Preacher [i.e., Ecclesiastes].
Meteorologicum (1627) by S.L. Fromondus dealt with springs, rivers, the sea and earthquakes.
Seawater is evaporated by the earth's central fire, the salt coming off with "the steam and only
being separated from it as it filters up through the earth."
Descartes expressed similar views in his Philosophidae Principia (1644), but being more widely
read, hence had greater influence. The earth's heat causes steam to rise continuously from large
seawater-filled cavities beneath the mountains, passing through crevices so minute that when the
steam condenses against the cooler rocks, the condensate cannot return by the same route and
therefore seeks larger fissures leading springs on the earth's surface. The salt left behind
explains the deposits of rock salt.
Mathematician Jacques Pelletier (1517-1582) supposed that springs must be of marine origin, as
many of them contain salt. While saline springs do exist, they're in fact uncommon, and thus
here we have a logical determination based on false premise.
According to Kircher, the earth
contains subterranean conduits
from deposits of Ferrum, Sulphur,
Aqua dulcis, Sal, Nitrum, Alumen
and Vitriolum, all but the last
easily cognated. “Vitriolum” is
glass.
Pelletier overestimated the extent
of saline springs and Kircher was
far too fond of subterranean
rivers, but the two scientists were
on the chemical track. Mineral
content indeed reveals the nature
of a spring's source.
"Must Clog and Obstruct"
But let us return to Lucretius' earlier deduction that any ocean-derived subsurface stream that
emerges as fresh water "leaves its salt behind in every pore."
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