Book 9 of the meeting of rivers and their flow and ebb. The cause is
the same in the sea, where it is caused by the straits of Gibraltar.
And again it is caused by whirlpools.
958.
OF THE FLOW AND EBB.
All seas have their flow and ebb in the same period, but they seem
to vary because the days do not begin at the same time throughout
the universe; in such wise as that when it is midday in our
hemisphere, it is midnight in the opposite hemisphere; and at the
Eastern boundary of the two hemispheres the night begins which
follows on the day, and at the Western boundary of these hemispheres
begins the day, which follows the night from the opposite side.
Hence it is to be inferred that the above mentioned swelling and
diminution in the height of the seas, although they take place in
one and the same space of time, are seen to vary from the above
mentioned causes. The waters are then withdrawn into the fissures
which start from the depths of the sea and which ramify inside the
body of the earth, corresponding to the sources of rivers, which are
constantly taking from the bottom of the sea the water which has
flowed into it. A sea of water is incessantly being drawn off from
the surface of the sea. And if you should think that the moon,
rising at the Eastern end of the Mediterranean sea must there begin
to attract to herself the waters of the sea, it would follow that we
must at once see the effect of it at the Eastern end of that sea.
Again, as the Mediterranean sea is about the eighth part of the
circumference of the aqueous sphere, being 3000 miles long, while
the flow and ebb only occur 4 times in 24 hours, these results would
not agree with the time of 24 hours, unless this Mediterranean sea
were six thousand miles in length; because if such a superabundance
of water had to pass through the straits of Gibraltar in running
behind the moon, the rush of the water through that strait would be
so great, and would rise to such a height, that beyond the straits
it would for many miles rush so violently into the ocean as to cause
floods and tremendous seething, so that it would be impossible to
pass through. This agitated ocean would afterwards return the waters
it had received with equal fury to the place they had come from, so
that no one ever could pass through those straits. Now experience
shows that at every hour they are passed in safety, but when the
wind sets in the same direction as the current, the strong ebb
increases [Footnote 23: In attempting to get out of the
Mediterranean, vessels are sometimes detained for a considerable
time; not merely by the causes mentioned by Leonardo but by the
constant current flowing eastwards through the middle of the straits
of Gibraltar.]. The sea does not raise the water that has issued
from the straits, but it checks them and this retards the tide; then
it makes up with furious haste for the time it has lost until the
end of the ebb movement.
959.
That the flow and ebb are not general; for on the shore at Genoa
there is none, at Venice two braccia, between England and Flanders
18 braccia. That in the straits of Sicily the current is very strong
because all the waters from the rivers that flow into the Adriatic
pass there.
[Footnote: A few more recent data may be given here to facilitate
comparison. In the Adriatic the tide rises 2 and 1/2 feet, at
Terracina 1 1/4. In the English channel between Calais and Kent it
rises from 18 to 20 feet. In the straits of Messina it rises no more
than 2 1/2 feet, and that only in stormy weather, but the current is
all the stronger. When Leonardo accounts for this by the southward
flow of all the Italian rivers along the coasts, the explanation is
at least based on a correct observation; namely that a steady
current flows southwards along the coast of Calabria and another
northwards, along the shores of Sicily; he seems to infer, from the
direction of the fust, that the tide in the Adriatic is caused by
it.]
960.
In the West, near to Flanders, the sea rises and decreases every 6
hours about 20 braccia, and 22 when the moon is in its favour; but
20 braccia is the general rule, and this rule, as it is evident,
cannot have the moon for its cause. This variation in the increase
and decrease of the sea every 6 hours may arise from the damming up
of the waters, which are poured into the Mediterranean by the
quantity of rivers from Africa, Asia and Europe, which flow into
that sea, and the waters which are given to it by those rivers; it
pours them to the ocean through the straits of Gibraltar, between
Abila and Calpe [Footnote 5: _Abila_, Lat. _Abyla_, Gr. , now
Sierra _Ximiera_ near Ceuta; _Calpe_, Lat. _Calpe_. Gr., now
Gibraltar. Leonardo here uses the ancient names of the rocks, which
were known as the Pillars of Hercules.]. That ocean extends to the
island of England and others farther North, and it becomes dammed up
and kept high in various gulfs. These, being seas of which the
surface is remote from the centre of the earth, have acquired a
weight, which as it is greater than the force of the incoming waters
which cause it, gives this water an impetus in the contrary
direction to that in which it came and it is borne back to meet the
waters coming out of the straits; and this it does most against the
straits of Gibraltar; these, so long as this goes on, remain dammed
up and all the water which is poured out meanwhile by the
aforementioned rivers, is pent up [in the Mediterranean]; and this
might be assigned as the cause of its flow and ebb, as is shown in
the 21st of the 4th of my theory.
III.
SUBTERRANEAN WATER COURSES.
Theory of the circulation of the waters (961. 962).
961.
Very large rivers flow under ground.
962.
This is meant to represent the earth cut through in the middle,
showing the depths of the sea and of the earth; the waters start
from the bottom of the seas, and ramifying through the earth they
rise to the summits of the mountains, flowing back by the rivers and
returning to the sea.
Observations in support of the hypothesis (963-969).
963.
The waters circulate with constant motion from the utmost depths of
the sea to the highest summits of the mountains, not obeying the
nature of heavy matter; and in this case it acts as does the blood
of animals which is always moving from the sea of the heart and
flows to the top of their heads; and here it is that veins burst--as
one may see when a vein bursts in the nose, that all the blood from
below rises to the level of the burst vein. When the water rushes
out of a burst vein in the earth it obeys the nature of other things
heavier than the air, whence it always seeks the lowest places. [7]
These waters traverse the body of the earth with infinite
ramifications.
[Footnote: The greater part of this passage has been given as No.
849 in the section on Anatomy.]
964.
The same cause which stirs the humours in every species of animal
body and by which every injury is repaired, also moves the waters
from the utmost depth of the sea to the greatest heights.
965.
It is the property of water that it constitutes the vital human of
this arid earth; and the cause which moves it through its ramified
veins, against the natural course of heavy matters, is the same
property which moves the humours in every species of animal body.
But that which crowns our wonder in contemplating it is, that it
rises from the utmost depths of the sea to the highest tops of the
mountains, and flowing from the opened veins returns to the low
seas; then once more, and with extreme swiftness, it mounts again
and returns by the same descent, thus rising from the inside to the
outside, and going round from the lowest to the highest, from whence
it rushes down in a natural course. Thus by these two movements
combined in a constant circulation, it travels through the veins of
the earth.
966.
WHETHER WATER RISES FROM THE SEA TO THE TOPS OF MOUNTAINS.
The water of the ocean cannot make its way from the bases to the
tops of the mountains which bound it, but only so much rises as the
dryness of the mountain attracts. And if, on the contrary, the rain,
which penetrates from the summit of the mountain to the base, which
is the boundary of the sea, descends and softens the slope opposite
to the said mountain and constantly draws the water, like a syphon
[Footnote 11: Cicognola, Syphon. See Vol. I, Pl. XXIV, No. 1.] which
pours through its longest side, it must be this which draws up the
water of the sea; thus if _s n_ were the surface of the sea, and the
rain descends from the top of the mountain _a_ to _n_ on one side,
and on the other sides it descends from _a_ to _m_, without a doubt
this would occur after the manner of distilling through felt, or as
happens through the tubes called syphons [Footnote 17: Cicognola,
Syphon. See Vol. I, Pl. XXIV, No. 1.]. And at all times the water
which has softened the mountain, by the great rain which runs down
the two opposite sides, would constantly attract the rain _a n_, on
its longest side together with the water from the sea, if that side
of the mountain _a m_ were longer than the other _a n_; but this
cannot be, because no part of the earth which is not submerged by
the ocean can be lower than that ocean.
967.
OF SPRINGS OF WATER ON THE TOPS OF MOUNTAINS.
It is quite evident that the whole surface of the ocean--when there
is no storm--is at an equal distance from the centre of the earth,
and that the tops of the mountains are farther from this centre in
proportion as they rise above the surface of that sea; therefore if
the body of the earth were not like that of man, it would be
impossible that the waters of the sea--being so much lower than the
mountains--could by their nature rise up to the summits of these
mountains. Hence it is to be believed that the same cause which
keeps the blood at the top of the head in man keeps the water at the
summits of the mountains.
[Footnote: This conception of the rising of the blood, which has
given rise to the comparison, was recognised as erroneous by
Leonardo himself at a later period. It must be remembered that the
MS. A, from which these passages are taken, was written about twenty
years earlier than the MS. Leic. (Nos. 963 and 849) and twenty-five
years before the MS. W. An. IV.
There is, in the original a sketch with No. 968 which is not
reproduced. It represents a hill of the same shape as that shown at
No. 982. There are veins, or branched streams, on the side of the
hill, like those on the skull Pl. CVIII, No. 4]
968.
IN CONFIRMATION OF WHY THE WATER GOES TO THE TOPS OF MOUNTAINS.
I say that just as the natural heat of the blood in the veins keeps
it in the head of man,--for when the man is dead the cold blood
sinks to the lower parts--and when the sun is hot on the head of a
man the blood increases and rises so much, with other humours, that
by pressure in the veins pains in the head are often caused; in the
same way veins ramify through the body of the earth, and by the
natural heat which is distributed throughout the containing body,
the water is raised through the veins to the tops of mountains. And
this water, which passes through a closed conduit inside the body of
the mountain like a dead thing, cannot come forth from its low place
unless it is warmed by the vital heat of the spring time. Again, the
heat of the element of fire and, by day, the heat of the sun, have
power to draw forth the moisture of the low parts of the mountains
and to draw them up, in the same way as it draws the clouds and
collects their moisture from the bed of the sea.
969.
That many springs of salt water are found at great distances from
the sea; this might happen because such springs pass through some
mine of salt, like that in Hungary where salt is hewn out of vast
caverns, just as stone is hewn.
[Footnote: The great mine of Wieliczka in Galicia, out of which a
million cwt. of rock-salt are annually dug out, extends for 3000
metres from West to East, and 1150 metres from North to South.]
IV.
OF RIVERS.
On the way in which the sources of rivers are fed.
970.
OF THE ORIGIN OF RIVERS.
The body of the earth, like the bodies of animals, is intersected
with ramifications of waters which are all in connection and are
constituted to give nutriment and life to the earth and to its
creatures. These come from the depth of the sea and, after many
revolutions, have to return to it by the rivers created by the
bursting of these springs; and if you chose to say that the rains of
the winter or the melting of the snows in summer were the cause of
the birth of rivers, I could mention the rivers which originate in
the torrid countries of Africa, where it never rains--and still less
snows--because the intense heat always melts into air all the clouds
which are borne thither by the winds. And if you chose to say that
such rivers, as increase in July and August, come from the snows
which melt in May and June from the sun's approach to the snows on
the mountains of Scythia [Footnote 9: Scythia means here, as in
Ancient Geography, the whole of the Northern part of Asia as far as
India.], and that such meltings come down into certain valleys and
form lakes, into which they enter by springs and subterranean caves
to issue forth again at the sources of the Nile, this is false;
because Scythia is lower than the sources of the Nile, and, besides,
Scythia is only 400 miles from the Black sea and the sources of the
Nile are 3000 miles distant from the sea of Egypt into which its
waters flow.
The tide in estuaries.
971.