VOL. XV.] ^ PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 117 



for both parts of the question, from the history of springs ; with intent more 

 particularly to satisfy his reader, which springs they are, that wholly come from 

 rains, mists, dews, &c. also which from the seas, and which from both. In 

 order hereunto, he gives a scheme of the several species of springs, to which 

 he thinks all sorts may be reduced : and then determines that such intermitting 

 springs as are profluent after rains, and then gradually slacken, and at last are 

 wholly dried up on summer heats, do certainly owe their birth to rains. And 

 not only such intermitting ones, but some perennial springs also, such as we 

 often find on the tops of mountains, which we may rather term weeping, than 

 flowing or running springs ; which seem to have their origin from the mists so 

 frequently seen hanging on the tops of hills. Yet he cannot agree with several 

 authors, that all springs owe their origin to rains, dews, &c. For he thinks 

 not that temporary irregular fountains can possibly come from rains ; much less 

 the temporary regular ones, such as the fountains of the Lers in France, of 

 Lamb's-boum in England, of the Zirchnitzer sea in Carniola, and divers others. 

 Much less still thinks he that such vast perennial springs, as those of Willow- 

 bridge in Staffordshire, of the Sorgue in France, can come from rains ; since 

 he finds on computation, that all the waters that fall near them in the space of 

 a year in rains, dews, &c. will not comparably amount to what issues from 

 them. For the better calculation of which, he shows to what height rain- 

 water will rise in a year, in a conservatory fitted for that purpose, communibus 

 annis ; and how many hogsheads, &c. will flow out of a cubic inch bore, in 

 24 hours, or a year, &c. And then shows, that though it may be true, what 

 an anonymous French author asserts, that more water falls in rains near the 

 fountain head of the river Seine, than is requisite for the yearly expence of 

 that river ; yet it is not so at Willovvbridge, or likely to be so with the foun- 

 tain head of the river Sorgue, which, as Gassendus says, is navigable to the 

 springs which are its original. Yet much less still can he imagine that all the 

 rains, mists, dews, snows, &c. that fall on the surface of the whole earth for 

 the space of a year, can supply the vast expence of all the rivers in the world 

 for the same time. And as he judges that all fresh-water springs cannot come 

 from rains, neither can he believe that either hot springs or salt springs are 

 maintained thence. He then proceeds to prove, that there are subterranean 

 communications between the seas and fountains, by which they are supplied; 

 and that there are charybdes which swallow the sea, which happening sometimes 

 to be stopped, the greatest rivers have ceased to run. This subterranean cir- 

 culation of waters he further evinces from divers springs, that ebb and flow 

 with the sea; and from divers hikes that have salt water and sea fish in them, 

 yet have no superterranean communication with any sea. He also says it is fur- 



