* 
Chap. 66.] WATEK. 97 
a lower level, and this is admitted to be essential to it, no 
one ever doubted that the water would accumulate on any 
shore, as much as its slope would allow it. It is also certain, 
that the lower anything is, so much the nearer is it to the 
centre, and that all the lines which are drawn from this point 
to the water which is the nearest to it, are shorter than those 
which reach from the beginning of the sea to its extreme 
parts \ Hence it follows, that all the water, from every part, 
tends towards the centre, and, because it has this tendency, 
does not fall. 
CHAP. 66. — HOW THE WATER IS COKIS^ECTED WITH THE EAETH. 
OE THE NAViaATIOK OE THE SEA AND THE BIVEES. 
"We must believe, that the great artist, Nature, has so 
arranged it, that as the arid and dry earth cannot subsist by 
itself and without moisture, nor, on the other hand, can the 
water subsist unless it be supported by the earth, they are 
connected by a mutual union. The earth opens her harbours, 
while the water pervades the whole earth, within, without, 
and above ; its veins running in all directions, like connect- 
ing links, and bursting out on even the highest ridges ; 
where, forced up by the air, and pressed out by the weight 
of the earth, it shoots forth as from a pipe, and is so far from 
being in danger of falling, that it bounds up to the highest 
and most lofty places. Hence the reason is obvious, why 
the seas are not increased by the daily accession of so many 
rivers^. 
(66.) The earth bas, therefore, the wbole of its globe girt, 
on every side, by the sea flowing round it. And this is not ^ 
^ " Quam quae ad extremum mare a primis aquis." I profess myself 
altogether miable to follow the author's mode of reasoning in this para- 
graph, or to throw any light upon it. He would appear to be arguing 
in favour of the actual flatness of the surface of the ocean, whereas his 
previous remarks prove its convexity. 
2 Alexandre remarks on this passage, " !N"empe quodremotissitnos etiam 
fontes alat oceanus. Sed omittit Plinius vaporationis intermedia ope 
hoc fieri." Lemaire, i. 376. Aristotle has written at considerable length 
on the origin of springs, in his Meteor, i. 13. p. 543 et seq. He argues 
against the opinion of those who suppose that the water of springs is 
entirely derived from evaporation. Seneca's account of the origin of 
springs is found in his Nat. Qusest. iii. 1. 
VOL. I. H 
