Underground Rivers - University of New Mexico

Chapter 7 -- The Concept of Circulation
CHAPTER 7
THE CONCEPT OF CIRCULATION
This chapter, The Copncept of Circulation, and the two following, Subterranean Mechanisms and
Superterranean Metrics, together trace the formation of hydrology as a physically-based science,
and thus a means to assess the flow of water underground.
We could sequentially march through several centuries of scientific history, noting who solved
what challenge at what time. To continue our journey a bit more thematically, however, we'll do it
in three passes.
In this chapter we will follow the concept of circulation through the Renaissance and into the
formative age of science. We will note the problem of rainfall perceived to be less than
streamflow and how a vast subterranean abyss might serve as a logical solution. We will see
how a dual hydrologic cycle seemed to bring everything together.
In the next chapter, Subterranean Engines, we'll concentrate on how subterranean resupply
might work. Perhaps seawater is squeezed upward by the earth's weight. Perhaps it's by
electricity. We'll see some innovative causality when data's not of concern.
And in the following chapter, Superterranean Metrics, we'll note what was realized once
observers began to measure the observables. We'll see rudimentary numbers, but once there
was data, subterranean sea-to-spring piping began to seem less necessary.
We should pause, however, to recall the roots of this chapter in what was fairly well extablished in
by late-medeival Christian interpretation.
Adelard of Bath (1080-c. 1152) contributed the first full
Arabic-to-Latin translation of Euclid's Elements, a work
not printed however, until the 14th century. To the
right, the frontispiece shows a woman -- Sophia, we
might imagine --teaching geometry to monks.
Adelard's Quaestiones Naturales, written as a dialogue
between the author and his nephew, includes
questions regarding rivers.
For neither do all rivers flow down into the sea, nor
do none of them. But as some flow down into it, so
also others are born from it. Thus if, while it
receives, it gives back, a perceptible increase in its
volume does not occur. In fact, since many
underground rivers arise from the sea, and the
quaffing of the planets takes away a large part of the
water, some people have been puzzled about how
the sea does not suffer a loss, and how it receives
sufficient water in compensation.
In a circular process there is neither a beginning nor an end. For anything to which this can
apply can be returned into itself. Rivers which flow perpetually, in case you are unaware, have
naturally acquired a circular movement. They therefore return into themselves, and what has
flowed away in their going, they give back by returning. Hence the Satirist, in making fun of the
stupidity of the common people, says:
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