944

The relative height of the surface of the sea to that of the land.

THE OPINION OF SOME PERSONS WHO SAY THAT THE WATER OF SOME SEAS IS HIGHER THAN THE HIGHEST SUMMITS OF MOUNTAINS; AND NEVERTHELESS THE WATER WAS FORCED UP TO THESE SUMMITS.

Water would not move from place to place if it were not that it seeks the lowest level and by a natural consequence it never can return to a height like that of the place where it first on issuing from the mountain came to light. And that portion of the sea which, in your vain imagining, you say was so high that it flowed over the summits of the high mountains, for so many centuries would be swallowed up and poured out again through the issue from these mountains. You can well imagine that all the time that Tigris and Euphrates

Taken from The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci edited by Jean Paul Richter, 1880.

Notebooks of Leonoardo da Vinci
XVI: Physical Geography.
. . .
924,
925,
926,
927,
928
General introduction.
929
The arrangement of Book I.
930
Definitions.
931,
932
Of the surface of the water in relation to the globe.
933,
934,
935,
936
Of the proportion of the mass of water to that of the earth.
937,
938
The theory of Plato.
939
That the flow of rivers proves the slope of the land.
940
Theory of the elevation of water within the mountains.
941
The relative height of the surface of the sea to that of the land.
942,
943,
944,
945
Refutation of Pliny’s theory as to the saltness of the sea.
946,
947
The characteristics of sea water.
948,
949
On the formation of Gulfs.
950,
951
On the encroachments of the sea on the land and vice versa.
952,
953,
954
The ebb and flow of the tide.
955,
956,
957,
958,
959,
960
Theory of the circulation of the waters.
961,
962
Observations in support of the hypothesis.
963,
964
. . .