Underground Rivers - University of New Mexico

Chapter 7 -- The Concept of Circulation
William Whiston (1667-1752) was the best-known British author
dealing with the genesis of the earth. Succeeding Newton as
Professor of Mathematics in Cambridge, Whiston edited and
published Euclid’s geometry and wrote textbooks on astronomy
and physics.
Availing himself of Newtonian ideas, Whiston’s A New Theory of
the Earth, from its Original, to the Consummation of All Things
(1696) explained geological catastrophe, not by human sin, but
by a water-tailed comet which on November 28, 2349 BC which
distored the crust, making "Gaps and Clefts ... quite through it"
and opened "the fountains of the great deep."
The waters eventually receded due to two causes:
First by a Wind which dried up some and secondly, by their
descent through those Fissures, Chaps and Breaches, (at
which part of them had before ascended) into the Bowels of
the Earth, which received the rest. To which later also the
Wind, by hurrying the Waters up and down, and so promoting
their lighting into the before-mention'd Fissures, was very
much subservient.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was of similar opinion regarding a primordial crust floating on a
fluid interior.
Thus the surface of the globe would be capable of being broken and disordered by the violent
movements of the fluids on which it rested.
Ukrainian Johannes Herbinius’ (1633-1676) Dissertationes de Admirandis Mundi Cataractis et
Subterranis (1678) supported the abyss concept, but hedged regarding causality. The reason for
continuous flow through the “great central abyss” may be God, angels, stars, the spirit of the
earth or perhaps the air within. Herbinius held that ocean water circulates continuously from the
North to the South Pole via the center of the earth and attributed tides to the periodic ejection of
water from reservoirs beneath the poles. An engraving shows a "Hydrophylacium Subterraneum"
but the text gives no indication of magnitude.
Concerned with public health, Bernardino Ramazzini (1633-1714) accounted for the “wonderful
springs of Modena” in De Fontium Mutinensium (1691).
Seeing the Nature and Origin of this hidden Source deserves to be as much enquired into as
that of the Nile did formerly, let us pass through these Subterraneous Waters with the sails of
our Reason.
And I think 'tis probable the matter is so in our Fountains, to wit, the Water flows out of some
Cistern plac'd in the neighboring Mountains, by subterraneous Passage.
But 'tis, by far, more probable, that the Water is sent from the sea into such Claim, than from
Showers, or melted Snows, seeing Rain and Snow-waters run away for the most part by Rivers
above Ground; neither can they enter into the ground so deep; as Seneca also testifies.
Regarding the origin of waters,
As I have deduced from the Origin of this Water from the Sea, so I do not deny, that many
Fountains owe their Origins to Rains and melted Snow; yet with this difference, that the
Fountain which have their Spring from the Sea by hidden Passages continue perpetual, but
those which run from Showers and temporary Springs at some time of the year, are diminished
and quite dry up.
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