which has been cut, and when this moisture
has been expended nature ceases not to supply it with vital moisture to
the end of its life.

59.

Water is that which is given to supply vital moisture to this arid
earth; and the cause which propels it through its ramifications against
the natural course of weighty matter is the same which stirs the
humours in every kind of animal body.

[Sidenote: Water on Mountains]

60.

Water, the vital moisture of the earthly machine, moves by reason of
its natural heat.

{166}

[Sidenote: On the Water of Rivers]

61.

Rivers, with their ruinous inundations, seem to me the most potent of
all causes of terrestrial losses, and not fire, as some have
maintained; because the violence of fire is exhausted where there is
nothing forthcoming to feed it. The flowing of water, which is
maintained by sloping valleys, ends and dies at the lowest depth of the
valley; but fire is caused by fuel and the movement of water by
incline. The fuel of fire is disunited, and its damage is disunited
and isolated, and fire dies where there is no fuel. The incline of
valleys is united, and damage caused by water is collective, along with
the ruinous course of the river, until with its valley it winds into
the sea, the universal base and sole haven of the wandering waters of
rivers. But what voice or words shall I find to express the disastrous
ravages, the incredible upheavals, the insatiable rapacity, caused by
the headstrong rivers? What can I say? Certainly I do not feel myself
equal to such a demonstration, yet by experience I will try to relate
the process of ruin of the rivers which destroy their banks and against
which no mortal bastion can prevail.

62.

The recesses of the bottom of the sea are perennial, the summits of
mountains are transitory, whence it follows that the earth will become
{167} spherical and covered with waters, and will be uninhabitable.

[Sidenote: Transformations in Past and Future]

63.

The shores of the sea continually increase in soil, towards the middle
of the sea; the cliffs and promontories of the sea are continually
being ruined and consumed; the mediterranean seas will dry up and all
that will remain will be the channel of the greatest river which enters
into them; this will flow to the ocean and pour out its waters together
with that of all the rivers which are its tributaries.

[Sidenote: On the Earth's Vibration]

64.

The sub