Underground Rivers - University of New Mexico

Chapter 12 -- Superterranean Metrics
Dalton attributed the discrepancy to overestimated evaporation and non-representativeness
locations.
Upon the whole then I think that we can finally conclude that the rain and dew of this country
are equivalent to the quantity of water carried off by evaporation and by the rivers. And as
nature acts upon general laws, we ought to infer, that it must be the case in every other country
until the contrary is proved.
Dalton's finding is a prime example of Ockham's Razor, Chapter 10. When choosing between
conflicting, but incompatible, explanations, the simper of the explanations is more likely to be the
better. Dalton's finding calls upon but four quantifiable hydrologic estimates, no unseen routes or
mechanisms and no unique physical relationships.
We should not close this chapter secure that science has triumphed, however. Skepticism is too
much a part of human nature. Nearly a century later, the German geologist Otto Volger (1822-
1897) in The Scientific Solution to the Water Issue with Respect to the Supply of Cities (1877)
categorically denied any relation between rainfall and groundwater. Volger also maintained that
concern for groundwater contamination was a fear of phantoms which would impose unnecessary
costs on public water wells.
We began this chapter with a list of fallacious hydrological propositions commonly held until the
time of Newton.
1. Mechanisms such as wind, capillary action or wave action can draw large quantities of water
from the earth’s interior.
2. Sea water can lose its salt by infiltrating through soil.
3. Rainfall is insufficient to account for all water discharged by rivers.
4. Rainfall can not infiltrate into the ground in large quantities.
Rudimentary measurements disprove all four.
An ocean-to-mountain underground river becomes unnecessary when rainfall exceeds
streamflow. It seems, therefore -- if we allow ourselves a bit of reflection -- that Chapters 8-10
was spent looking for engines that need not exist.
The fifth perception, however, yet eluded testing.
5. The earth contains a large network of caverns and rivers.
Eliminating hydrologic necessity for underground rivers does not dispel the possibility of their
existence.
Did quantifying the hydrologic cycle remove underground rivers from theological interest?
Not at all. As we will see in the next chapter, it confirmed Christianity.
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