Underground Rivers - University of New Mexico

Kircher included the seabed as a source of
springflow because snow and rainfall are
seasonal, whereas rivers are not. To disprove
the mechanism of subterranean condensation,
he referred to the lake at Mt. St. Gotthard
lacking the covered vault that condensation
would necessitate.
Chapter 9 -- Thermodynamic Engines
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As an orientologist (among his myriad of
interests), Kircher pursued repots from his
fellow Jesuits regarding far-off Asia. His
illustration in China Monumentis (1667) is
another case of the fiery global engine.
Thomas Robinson's The Anatomy of the Earth (1694) and New Observations on the Natural
History of the World of Matter (1696) described vapors from the sea condensing into mountain
showers that cause rivers to flood. Other waters move upward through a maze of subterranean
“dikes” to mountain tops where they emerge as springs.
Robinson rehashed da Vinci’s analogy between the bursting forth of mountain top fountains and
the breaking of a blood vessel. Mountain tops, Robinson instructs, are more subject to accidents
(tempests and thunder) than are flat plains where the veins are thickly buried.
The windings and turnings of the greater Veins... through which the whole mass of
subterranean Water Circulates. The Lesser Fibers, or Ramifactions, filling all the flat Strata
with feeders of Waters, which breaking out upon the Surface of the Earth cause Springs.
And thus, in our Bodies, ‘tis much easier to break a Vein in the Neck or Arm, where they lye
nearest the skin; than in the Buttocks, or any other such Fleshy-part.
Robinson's diagram explains the matter.
A Central Fire
B Mountains
C Heaths
D Plains
E Channels of the Sea
F Seas with rivers flowing into them
from the tops of mountains
“swelling them into a Gibbosity
and causing in them a Continual
Fermentation.”
G Vapors arising from the Seas
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