ON THE ORIGIN AND CAUSES

...which so great and vast a force of waters arises, with which perennial springs and wells of regions scorched by the heat of the sun gush forth in their annual cycles. But Seneca, tracing the origin of water more deeply, holds that the earth is mutable. He also says that whatever flows out from it, because it is not conceived in open air, thickens and is immediately turned into moisture, and that all elements are made from all things. He indeed correctly thinks that the earth is mutable; for if all things that are under the lunar sphere are mutable, and elements and bodies concreted from them occupy the lowest place of the universe, no element can be immutable. Therefore, the earth itself is also mutable. But he does not rightly judge that whatever flows from it thickens and is immediately turned into water.

For there are two species of exhalations: one hot and moist, which, for the sake of distinction, I am accustomed to call halitus vapor; the other hot and dry, which I call vapor steam/fume. But this latter is also called anhelitus breath, and expiratio exhalation, and dry or smoky exhalation; the former is called moist or watery. Moreover, if anyone were to say "dry vapor" and "moist steam," he can convince those who testify that he spoke in Latin. But enough of the use of names; I return to the matter. Vapor, when cooled, is easily turned into water, but water cannot be made from steam unless a mutation of both qualities has occurred. For air is not made from it unless dryness is converted into the opposite quality, nor is water generated from air unless heat has been driven from it, which cannot happen quickly. Therefore, whatever flows from the earth is not soon converted into moisture. Although any element is generated from any other, and water can be made from fire, provided that both qualities conflict with each other—and similarly from earth, as it consists of thick parts—yet such mutations of elements, because they do not happen quickly, and not unless intermediate and middle mutations have preceded them, cannot supply such a large and flowing abundance of water to the earth.

Wherefore, a matter that is easily mutable must be sought, from which all the water that the earth does not collect from rains arises. But because that cannot be found, it follows that it partly arises and partly flows. Let us first speak of its origin. It arises indeed from vapor; for it is carried into the high parts of the channels, and there, condensed by cold, it departs into water, which, on account of its gravity and weight, slides down again to the bottom and makes an addition to the flows of waters, if there are any. If it has a path through a widened channel, the same happens to it when it has departed further from the place of its origin. And that water is generated in such a way is indicated primarily by the process of distillation. For when that which has been put into the flask has heated up, it exhales; this vapor, raised into the lid, is converted by cold into water, which drips from the spout. In this way, water is continuously made under the earth. For in rare earths and rocks, and their joints, and likewise in veinlets and veins and caverns, the air which the earth has exhaled is enclosed, rarely heats up and is stirred, but more often cools and remains in a certain way immobile, for which reason it is turned into water; and air is indeed by its own...