Underground Rivers - University of New Mexico

Cajetano Fontana wrote in
Instituto Physico-Astronomica
(1695) that fountains rising within
the earth are actuated by “anima
of the Geocosmos,” the economy
of nature, just as human blood is
moved by the “anima” of vital
principle.
Chapter 8 -- Transmuational and Biologic Engines
Reluctant to be retired, the arterial analogy received a
hearing in London's Royal Society as late as 1736 when
Christopher Packe (1686-1749) commended glowingly the
"concerted Regularity” of the valleys in Kent, likening them
to the veins of the body, and hinted at a subterranean
network of channels, "analogous to the arteries,"
published the year following as Dissertation upon the
Surface of the Earth, as Delineated in a Specimen of a
Philosophico-Chorographical Chart of East Kent.
In retrospect, analogy to human blood wasn't bad science for Leonardo's day. It mimicked
observable natural function and, like Newtonian physics, sought physical law independent of
scale. The model's persistence for another two centuries is more difficult to justify, however.
The Urinary Tract
Springs
Ocean
The urinary-tract model never got too far. Were it not associated with a respected scientist, we'd
drop it from our list, but on the other hand, it's creative.
DRAFT 1122//66//22001122
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