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Journal of Hydrology 523 (2015) 839–849

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Journal of Hydrology
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jhydrol

Georgius Agricola’s contributions to hydrology


Isabel F. Barton ⇑
Department of Geosciences, University of Arizona, 1040 E. 4th St., Bldg. #77, Tucson, AZ 85721, United States

a r t i c l e i n f o s u m m a r y

Article history: Georgius Agricola’s 1546 book De Ortu et Causis Subterraneorum (On the Source and Causes of What is
Received 21 January 2015 Underground) was the first European work since antiquity to focus on hydrology and helped to shape
Received in revised form 8 February 2015 the thought of Nicolaus Steno, Pierre Perrault, A.G. Werner, and other important figures in the history
Accepted 9 February 2015
of hydrology and geology. De Ortu contains the first known expressions of numerous concepts important
Available online 18 February 2015
This manuscript was handled by Geoff
in modern hydrology: erosion as an active process, groundwater movement through pores and fissures,
Syme, Editor-in-Chief hydrofracturing, water-rock reaction, and others. The concepts of groundwater origins, movement, and
nature in De Ortu were also the foundation for the theories of ore deposit formation for which Agricola
Keywords:
is better known. In spite of their importance, most of Agricola’s contributions to the study of groundwater
Georgius Agricola are unrecognized today because De Ortu, alone of his major works, has never been translated out of Latin
De Ortu et Causis Subterraneorum and no existing vernacular summary of it is longer than two pages. This article presents the first detailed
History of hydrology description of Agricola’s work on hydrology and discusses the derivation and impact of his ideas.
Groundwater Ó 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Steno

1. Introduction and problem statement that importance, it is scarcely studied. Insofar as most practicing
hydrologists and historians of science think about the history of
Only in the last three centuries has hydrology assembled into a hydrology, they begin in the later seventeenth century with Pierre
science. Through most of human history, the hydrological corpus Perrault and Edmé Mariotte. The purpose of this article is to draw
consisted of a motley assortment of chapters or fragments of chap- attention to the importance of the work that preceded them and
ters in books written primarily about minerals, natural disasters, laid the groundwork for the development of hydrology as a science.
and other subjects. Groundwater entered into these only as a
potential cause of earthquakes (Seneca, Quaestiones Naturales), as
1.1. Georgius Agricola
one of the four elements (Aristotle, Meteorology), as a candidate
for the Nature of All Things (Thales, as quoted in Aristotle’s
Georgius Agricola was born in Saxony in 1494. His real name
Metaphysics), as a source of hydropower (Vitruvius, De
was Georg Bauer; he lived in an age when scholarship spoke Latin.
architectura) and Rome’s water supply (Frontinus, De aquaeductu),
Like most moderately well-to-do men of his age, he had a thorough
as the starting material from which elemental action produced
education in the classics: in 1514 he entered the University of Leip-
stones (Albertus Magnus, Mineralia) or as a factor in deciding
zig, and about 1518 he graduated as a bachelor of arts. Upon
where to site buildings (Leonbattista Alberti, De re aedificatoria).
graduating, Agricola took a job at a school in Zwickau, at first
In the year 1540 these and other books dealt only with isolated
teaching Latin and Greek, later acting as principal. In 1522 he
pieces of hydrology and considered them only in terms of their
returned to Leipzig to take up a lecturer’s post at the university,
relation to other subjects. There was no collection of groundwa-
having by that time established his classical credentials by publish-
ter-related works, let alone a systematic treatment of the ground-
ing a Latin grammar. After two years there he removed to Italy and
water. Yet, less than two centuries later, there were almost a
remained there for three years for what we would now call a post-
dozen.
graduate education, studying the sciences and the classics.
The shift from haphazard and tangential meditations on
In 1527 Agricola returned to Saxony, taking up the post of town
groundwater to mature and systematic campaigns of hydrological
physician at Joachimsthal (Jachymov, Czech Republic), the center
research gave birth to hydrology as we know it today. In spite of
of Central European mining. He arrived during the peak of its
mines’ prosperity and spent every moment he could spare visiting
⇑ Address: Lowell Institute for Mineral Resources, University of Arizona, 1235 the mines and talking with miners. One of them, Lorenz Bermann,
James E. Rogers Way, Tucson, AZ 85721, United States. Tel.: +1 850 420 1870. became the focal point of Agricola’s first book on mining,
E-mail address: fay1@email.arizona.edu Bermannus, which he published in 1530 (Agricola, 1530).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2015.02.022
0022-1694/Ó 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
840 I.F. Barton / Journal of Hydrology 523 (2015) 839–849

Agricola also invested in the mines, and the proceeds of his Agricola’s books on earth science attained wide circulation in
shares endowed him with some financial flexibility if not complete Europe during and after his life. Bermannus was reprinted in Latin
independence. He resigned his position at Joachimsthal in 1530 in 1546, and by 1550 there was an Italian translation of the five
and spent the next two or three years traveling around the mining books in Agricola’s 1546 volume, including De Ortu et Causis Subter-
district studying the mines. In 1533 he settled in Chemnitz with raneorum. When De Re Metallica first appeared in 1556, it rivaled
the formal post of town physician and the informal post of expert them in popularity: translated into German in 1557, it went
consultant on all matters relating to mining. He spent much of his through a second Latin edition in 1561 and an Italian edition in
time writing the results of his studies of mines into five books, 1563. The Latin version of De Re Metallica was reprinted in 1621
printed together in 1546: De Ortu et Causis Subterraneorum; De Nat- and 1657, the German version in 1580 and 1621. However, Latin
ura eorum quae Effluunt ex Terra; De Natura Fossilium; De Veteribus reprints of De Ortu et Causis Subterraneorum, De Natura Fossilium,
et Novis Metallis; and Rerum Metallicarum Interpretatio. These five De Natura eorum quae Effluunt ex Terra, De Veteribus et Novis
books spanned hydrology, economic geology, geography, and min- Metallis, and Rerum Metallicarum Interpretatio appeared along with
eralogy, along with history. Herbert Hoover, one of the translators Bermannus appeared in 1556, 1558, 1612, and 1657, showing the
of Agricola’s last and most famous book De Re Metallica, called De continuing public appreciation for the full range of Agricola’s
Ortu et Causis Subterraneorum (On the Sources and Causes of What geological work. The publication between 1807 and 1812 of
is Underground) the first work on physical geology (Hoover and Ernst Lehmann’s German translations of De Ortu et Causis
Hoover, 1912); as I discuss here, it was also the first book to focus Subteranneorum, De Natura eorum quae Effluunt ex Terra, De Natura
on hydrology (Agricola, 1546a). The second book on the list, De Fossilium, and De Veteribus et Novis Metallis shows that Agricola’s
Natura eorum quae Effluunt ex Terra (On the Nature of What Comes reputation extended into the early nineteenth century – well into
Out of the Earth), followed and expanded on De Ortu, but contains the early days of the science of hydrology.
less hydrological theory. Rather, De Natura eorum quae Effluunt ex
Terra is mostly a catalog of the different types of subterranean flu- 1.2. Influence of Agricola’s work
ids, a guide to their identification, and a discussion of their effects
on human health (Agricola, 1546b). The third, De Natura Fossilium Agricola’s books exercised considerable influence on the early
(On the Nature of Fossils [a fossil then being something dug out of development of geology. Abraham Gottlob Werner compared Agri-
the earth, not necessarily a relic of a living organism]), was the ear- cola’s contributions in earth science to Aristotle’s in philosophy
liest attempt at a systematic mineralogy and led James Dwight (Werner, 1791), Johann Wolfgang von Goethe likened him to Fran-
Dana to title Agricola the Father of Mineralogy (Agricola, 1546c). cis Bacon, and Conrad Gesner (1516–1565) called him a Saxon
The fourth book, De Veteribus et Novis Metallis (On the Old and Pliny (Adams, 1938). In a reference to the year Agricola published
New Metals) is a history of metals along with a discussion of the his major geological volumes, Adams (1938) uses 1546 as the dawn
geographic distribution of minerals (Agricola, 1546d). Rerum of the Renaissance of earth sciences. These honorifics referred both
Metallicarum Interpretatio (Interpretations of Things Relating to to the wide range of Agricola’s interests and competence and to his
Metals) is the first known technical dictionary (Agricola, 1546e; originality in developing a primarily empirical approach to study-
Hoover and Hoover, 1912). ing the earth. The list of his important contributions to mineralogy,
The books collected in his 1546 volume were the basis for Agri- chemistry, speleology, and economic geology has filled many pages
cola’s later and more famous book on mining, De Re Metallica (fin- (e.g., Dibner, 1958; Wells and White, 1958; Multhauf, 1958; Smith,
ished in 1550, published posthumously in 1556). Although its 1983; Shaw, 1992; Schneer, 1995).
comprehensiveness and the aesthetic appeal of its woodcut illus- Nevertheless, since the days of their popularity in the 16th
trations have made De Re Metallica the chief source of Agricola’s through early 19th centuries (e.g., Werner, 1791), Agricola’s works
scientific fame, it is primarily a manual of mining and contains lit- have fallen into an obscurity alleviated only by the translations
tle of his geological reasoning (Agricola, 1556; Hoover and Hoover, into English of De Re Metallica in 1912 (Hoover and Hoover,
1912). Instead, Agricola refers the reader to De Ortu et Causis 1912), of De Natura Fossilium in 1955 (Bandy and Bandy, 1955),
Subterraneorum, De Natura eorum quae Effluunt ex Terra, and De and of De Animantibus Subterraneis in 2007 (Aldrich et al., 2007).
Natura Fossilium. The influence that these books had on Agricola’s Throughout both De Re Metallica and De Natura Fossilium, Agricola
subsequent scientific work, and on the early development of earth draws heavily on the hydrological and geological concepts
science as a whole, can hardly be overstated. In particular, the the- expounded in De Ortu et Causis Subterraneorum (Agricola, 1546c,
ories of ore deposit formation and mineral precipitation that 1556). But for the last two centuries, even those well acquainted
Agricola articulated in De Re Metallica are founded on the concepts with De Re Metallica, De Natura Fossilium, and the overall history
of groundwater flow and water-rock interaction that he first pub- of hydrology have known scarcely anything of Agricola’s contribu-
lished in De Ortu et Causis (Hoover and Hoover, 1912; Dibner, tions to the development of ideas about groundwater.
1958). For example, the recent History of Hydrogeology runs to 400+
After 1546, Agricola’s scientific interests briefly diverged from pages and contains only a single paragraph on Agricola (Howden
groundwater and minerals. Over the next nine years he published and Mather, 2012) – and the description of his hydrological work
books on zoology (De Animantibus Subterraneis [On the Animals of therein consists of a partial summary of his hydrothermal theory
the Underground]; Agricola, 1549), epidemiology, history, and the- of ore formation, drawn from the translators’ footnotes to De Re
ology. In the meantime, he continued to work on De Re Metallica, Metallica rather than from its original source, De Ortu et Causis
finishing in 1550. Possibly he tinkered with the manuscript after Subterraneorum (Muzikar, 2012). Although a few other articles
finishing it; at any rate, it only arrived at the printing press in (e.g., Tonini, 1977; Mather, 2012) mention in a sentence or two
1553. Because of the numerous detailed technical illustrations, that Agricola made some studies of hydrology and drew innovative
the edition was not completed and published until 1556. By that and important conclusions, none of them does more than mention
time its author was dead. Letters exchanged by Agricola’s friends this fact; none even states what the conclusions were, let alone
show that he died of a fever on November 21, 1555, at the age of why they mattered. They only find a place in a few histories of
62. He was denied burial in Chemnitz, having been a Catholic in geology. Adams (1938) devotes three paragraphs to Agricola’s the-
a state that converted during his lifetime to the Lutheran creed. ory of mineral precipitation as found in De Ortu et Causis Subterra-
The small estate he left soon dissipated. His work, however, has neorum, and two to his theory of the origins of springs and rivers.
retained its value through centuries. Oldroyd (1994) also gives three paragraphs to Agricola’s theory of
I.F. Barton / Journal of Hydrology 523 (2015) 839–849 841

mineral precipitation and none at all to the hydrology. Alone of Table 1


Agricola’s major works, De Ortu et Causis Subterraneorum has never Views of ancient Greco-Roman natural philosophers on groundwater.

been translated, and as of this writing there is no English descrip- Source Time View Known from
tion of its contents longer than two pages. Here I present the first Thales c. Groundwater is purified Quotation in Aristotle,
extended summary in English of De Ortu et Causis Subterraneorum 636– seawater forced into earth Metaphysics and
and explain its position in the history of hydrology. In reading 546 from surrounding cosmic Seneca, Quaestiones
and excerpting the text, I have used the version of De Ortu et Causis BC ocean Naturales
Anaxagoras c. Precipitation infiltrating Quotation in
Subterraneorum from the Latin collection of six of Agricola’s works 500– earth supplies all ground Hippolytus, Refutation
(Bermannus and the five books in the 1546 volume) published by 428 and surface water of All Heresies
Froben in 1556 at Basel. BC
Xenophanes c. Seawater infiltration and Quotation in
570– precipitation combine to Hippolytus, Refutation
2. Contents of De Ortu et Causis 475 form groundwater of All Heresies
BC
Diogenes 5th Sun draws seawater Quotation in Seneca,
De Ortu et Causis Subterraneorum literally means ‘‘On the cent. through earth’s Quaestiones Naturales
Sources and Causes of What is Underground’’, or ‘‘On the Sources BC subterranean rivers,
and Causes of Things Underground.’’ De Ortu et Causis Subterra- supplemented by water
neorum (hereafter De Ortu) contains five books, all focusing on generated within earth
(source unspecified)
what things exist in the earth’s subsurface. These Agricola divides
Plato 428– Water sloshing up from Phaedo
into two kinds: fluids that may erupt from the surface by their own 348 Lake Tartarus through
force, and solids that must be dug out. Agricola viewed the solids as BC underground rivers, plus
having precipitated out of the fluids, and accordingly defers solids some precipitation
to the last two books of De Ortu and takes the fluids first. His Aristotle 384– Air condensing and Meteorology
322 transforming into water in
central questions in Books I–III are what fluids are present in the BC underground caverns, plus
earth, how they move through it and interact with it, and how some precipitation
fluid-related processes affect the earth’s surface and subsurface. Theophrastus 371– Precipitation infiltrating On Winds
287 earth supplies all
BC groundwater
2.1. Book I Lucretius 96– Groundwater is purified De Rerum Natura
55 seawater infiltrating earth
BC
Agricola begins Book I by dividing subterranean fluids into two
Seneca 3 BC- Air transmutes into water Quaestiones Naturales
types, waters (aquae) and juices (succi). Water is thin and pure; 65 within earth, carried
juice is denser and consists of water mixed with other components. AD through veins and
The distinction of the two types is probably based on the work of underground rivers
Hippocrates of Cos (460-377 BC), who similarly divided water into Vitruvius 1st Precipitation infiltrating De Architectura Libri X
cent. earth supplies all
a clear, light, thin part and a cloudy, dense one (Tonini, 1977). The
AD groundwater
rest of Book I is occupied with a discussion of waters, beginning Pliny 23– Groundwater, condensed Historia Naturale
with the question of water source. This was one of the few hydro- 79 from air within earth,
logical questions that had received extensive attention from the AD carried in underground
rivers
Greeks and Romans: does all ground and surface water originate
in precipitation, or is some water generated in the interior of the
earth? Thus Agricola begins the discussion with a lengthy Previous
Work section that includes most of the Greco-Roman opinions steam, with candidates ranging from the sun’s rays (Herodotus,
about the origins of water (Table 1). These were wide-ranging. Of Histories, I: xxiv–xxv; Diogenes, quoted in Seneca, Quaestiones
all ancient philosophers, only three (Anaxagoras, Theophrastus, Naturales, IV: ii), the earth’s intrinsic heat (Anaximenes, fragment
and Vitruvius) considered precipitation sufficient to supply all DK13B1, translated in Freeman, 1948, and Oenopides, quoted in
ground and surface water (Adams, 1938). Everyone else thought Seneca, Quaestiones Naturales, IV: ii), strong winds shut up inside
that precipitation had to be supplemented by water generated the earth (Lucretius, De natura rerum, VI: 174–203), motion itself,
within the earth. No one could agree on exactly how this was done: or sulfurous veins (Albertus Magnus, Mineralia, IV: i: 1).
for instance, Thales and Xenophanes thought fresh water was gen- Having enumerated the options, Agricola assesses each in turn.
erated underground by infiltration and filtration of seawater He rejects the idea that precipitation could supply all terrestrial
(Thales known from quotation in Seneca, Quaestiones Naturales, water on the grounds that perennial fountains and rivers exist even
III: xiii; Xenophanes fragments A46 and B30, known from quota- in the driest deserts, where outflow exceeds inflow. Therefore, he
tion in Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies, I: xii), Plato thought says, water must somehow be generated within the earth. The ques-
it was water sloshing upward from the underworld’s Lake Tartarus tion, then, is how this supplementary water can be generated.
(Plato, Phaedo, 112a), Seneca thought that air spontaneously Although he concedes that the saltiness of wells dug near the coast
transmuted into water (Seneca, Quaestiones Naturales III: x), and is good evidence that seawater does percolate into the land and can
Anaximenes and many others (including Aristotle) thought contribute to the local groundwater resource, Agricola rejects
groundwater arose from steam condensing underground Thales’ and Xenophanes’ suggestion that seawater, suitably filtered
(Aristotle, Meteorology, I: 13). This last was one of the most popular by the earth, is groundwater. Agricola’s objections are based on his
options, mostly because it got around the difficulty of explaining supposition that the sea could not supply water to places above sea
how water could rise to supply alpine springs; capillarity was only level.
discovered in the seventeenth century, and the ancient philoso- The second opinion Agricola discusses was popular at and
phers spent a good deal of time puzzling over how groundwater before his time: that groundwater flows in subterranean rivers
could gush out of mountainsides (Adams, 1938). Unfortunately, and was stored in subterranean lakes very much like the rivers
the suggestion that steam rose and condensed created a further and lakes on the earth’s surface (Fig. 1). This was based on the
variety of opinions about the source of the heat that made the commonly held philosophical principle that the earth’s insides
842 I.F. Barton / Journal of Hydrology 523 (2015) 839–849

Fig. 2. Schematic illustration of Agricola’s concept of groundwater upflow at a


hydrological barrier.

ancients’ views. Whatever water does not come from rain or snow
must come from water that has percolated into the earth from out-
side, or from steam. Water percolates in from rivers and from the
Fig. 1. The subterranean lakes and rivers groundwater was commonly supposed to ocean. There is a terminal latitude beyond which this percolated
reside and flow in before, during, and for some time after Agricola’s work. From water cannot flow, so it must rise through veins and fissures and
Scheuchzer (1716). flow back at a higher level – although he was probably not thinking
of convective overturn, the flowpath he describes resembles a con-
mirrored its outsides, which originated in a remark of Seneca’s: ‘‘Be vection cell (Fig. 2). The water, as Agricola has said before, flows
assured that there exists below, everything that you see above’’ through veins and fissures: water is formed first in tiny drops,
(Seneca, Quaestiones Naturales III: xvi). Its more specific hydro- which congregate until the mass of water is enough to flow, and
logical consequences sprang from another passage in Seneca: then begin to seep through fissures in the rocks. Fissures discharge
‘‘On the outer surface [of the earth] are huge marshes, great into nearby veinlets; the veinlets discharge into veins; narrow
navigable lakes, and seas covering immense tracts of earth and veins into wider; and wide veins into wells or fountains. The phras-
pouring over its hollows. So in the interior of the earth there is ing of the last he borrows from Book III of Seneca’s Quaestiones
abundant store of fresh water, which overflows great spaces no less Naturales. It is this water, continuing to percolate through the
than the Ocean and its gulfs above ground. . . From that supply in earth, that moistens it so that the earth produces steam when heat-
the deeps, therefore, those rivers of which we have spoken issue ed. The percolated river water helps supply most fountains, and the
(Seneca, Quaestiones Naturales, III: viii).’’ Seneca may have intended water from cooled steam supplies alpine springs that lie above the
this statement as a metaphor, but the scholars of succeeding ages elevation of rivers.
took it as a prescription. Thus, they supposed that the earth’s inte- Having derived the water supply of fountains from steam, Agri-
rior had marshes, swamps, rivers, lakes and seas to match the ones cola has to find a source of heat to generate the steam. He rejects
on its surface. The observation of lakes in caves, recorded at least Aristotle’s suggestion that the sun’s rays heat the water, for hot
since the days of Philip of Macedon, seemed to support this springs flow as hot in winter as in summer, and as much in cold
(Shaw, 1992). For his part, Agricola agrees that some caverns do regions as in torrid. He also decides against Lucretius’ options,
contain lakes, but he points out that water only gushes from them which were that a strong wind entering caverns underground
briefly when the cavern walls are first pierced. After that the sup- heats the waters stored there (Lucretius, De rerum natura VI:
ply dries up and the cave fountain becomes a cave lake, not likely 173–204), or that water itself contained ‘‘seeds of fire’’ (Lucretius,
to be a continuous source for groundwater. He also repeats his ear- De rerum natura, VI: 852–870). Agricola points out that water in
lier objection that some of the source underground lakes would caverns is notoriously cold, and anyway no wind could heat water
have to be higher than alpine fountains that they feed, and points to the temperature found in hot springs. He also rejects a third sug-
out that none such has been discovered. gestion of unknown ancestry, that the motion of falling waters and
After discrediting underground lakes as a source for water, Agri- their impact with rocks heats them up. But miners know, Agricola
cola passes to the school of thought that held that water arose from says, that however forcefully water falls onto the rocks on the floor
steam or air trapped underground. The principal among these was of a mine, the water stays cold. He constructs an additional argu-
Aristotle, who posited that steam rose through the ground and ment against this on the shakier foundations of a bit of hydraulic
cooled and condensed into water in open spaces like caves mythology in the third book of Virgil’s Aeneid: the Alpheus river
(Aristotle, Meteorology I: 13). Here, he probably also drew on the in the Peloponnesus flows under the sea to emerge in Sicily as
known existence of cave lakes, and his hypothesis neatly evaded the fountain of Arethusa, and stays cold despite the length of its
the difficulty of raising water to supply alpine springs. Agricola fol- movement (Virgil, Aeneid, III: 694–696). From there he passes to
lows the Stagirite in deriving groundwater from steam condensing the various options involving the Earth’s subterranean heat, all
underground. His reasoning is couched in purely Aristotelian rejected on the grounds that nothing except fire can heat water
terms: steam has the quality of wetness and is therefore a likely to the boiling temperature observed in hot springs. This is also
source for water, as opposed to Seneca’s suggestion of air, which his objection to a fifth opinion, that waters heat up by reaction
has the contrasting quality of dryness (Seneca, Quaestiones with the sulfurous rocks they flow through. Hot waters do some-
Naturales, III: ix–x and xx, VI: xvi). Though elements may trans- times smell of sulfur, he agrees, and sulfur and bitumen ignite easi-
mute into one another, Agricola states, to go between these con- ly, but they are not themselves fiery.
trary qualities would require much time and many intermediate To make waters hot enough to generate steam and hot springs,
changes, and therefore could not produce nearly enough water to Agricola goes back to the opinion of Empedocles and Vitruvius that
supplement rainfall. On a less philosophical note, he later observes subterranean fire heated water (Empedocles, quoted in Seneca,
that all the air that fills a dry well fails to produce the tiniest drop Quaestiones Naturales III: xxiv; Vitruvius, De architectura II: 6). This
of water in it. raises another question: does the fire lie beneath the waters’ pas-
Having disposed of these ideas, Agricola articulates his own idea sageways or actually within them, and if the latter, how can it
about the sources of water within the earth. It is a collage of the escape being quenched by the water? Empedocles, making an
I.F. Barton / Journal of Hydrology 523 (2015) 839–849 843

analogy with Greek baths, thought that the fire heated the water- result of the observation of water in caves (Shaw, 1992). The idea
carrying tubes in the earth from below. But Agricola had seen fire- of underground rivers reigned more or less unchallenged through
cracking break even the hardest rocks in mines and thought that Agricola’s time. There were only two dissenting voices. One was
although the bronze pipes of a bath might stand up to constant Aristotle: in discussing how groundwater could reach mountain
exposure to fire, no natural material could. He concludes, therefore, springs, he suggested that mountains were made of a spongy earth
fire must therefore reside within the same channels as the water. that soaked up tiny amounts of water in many places in the ground
But, having attributed to fire-made steam the source of some (Aristotle, Meteorology, I: 13; Dooge, 2004). This concept of a porous
underground water, Agricola has to explain how fire can be main- medium was not generally accepted in antiquity or afterward, since
tained in rocks. Once again he cites previous work, citing the com- most philosophers saw mountains as the epitomes of solidity and
mon belief that fire could feed on calcareous rocks. This was thought there was nothing spongelike about them. Instead, it was
probably based on cement and lime production: calcination of generally believed that mountains contained some of the water-
limestone for quicklime showed that fire could consume calcare- storing receptacles (Fig. 3; e.g., Anaxagoras; Hippolytus, Refutation
ous rocks, and the heat generated in slaking probably gave rise to of All Heresies, I: 7). The other dissenter was Seneca, who had
the idea that limestone could somehow store the heat of the fire thought that the rivers that transported water deep underground
and transmit it to the waters of hot springs. Nevertheless Agricola might be supplemented, near the surface, by flow through veins.
deems this erroneous, for the heat thus produced soon dissipates, This came partly from Seneca’s earlier argument that water could
and could not be a reliable source for the perennial hot springs not percolate from the surface more than ten feet into the ground
known. The underground fire must be perpetual. Agricola agrees in most places, and that below that depth the water had to collect
with Vitruvius that the heat comes from bitumen burning under- into rivulets flowing through veins (Seneca, Quaestiones Naturales,
ground. Thus he reaches the end of his chain of reasoning: bitumen III: 7). This, in turn, was based on the observation of hard soil hori-
burns underground and heats passing water until it evaporates; zons below a few feet in depth: Seneca commented that water ran
the steam rises, cools, and condenses into water again; and the off of bare rocks without soaking in, and thought that it must do the
water supplements the absorbed rainfall and the water percolated same where it encountered a hard layer in the soil. Agricola dis-
in from rivers and the ocean. All together, he thinks, these sources agrees with Seneca. Flow through veins, fissures, and pores were
supply the earth with groundwater. the mechanism that explained why water could be found in wells
I have explained Agricola’s reasoning on the sources of subter- several hundred feet deep. True, Agricola says, water runs off solid
ranean water as a complete chain for the sake of clarity. However, rocks, but most rocks contain veins, fissures, and pores, through
in the text of De Ortu the explanation is broken by two lengthy which rainwater soaks down into the depths of the earth and the
digressions. These digressions are perhaps more significant than water generated at depth by steam rises to the surface. After this
his mostly-borrowed thoughts about hot springs, and are worth note, he continues with his intricate discussion of how steam gen-
discussing in detail. One of these digressions focuses on the erates waters within the earth.
mechanism of water storage within the earth, one on the mechan- Most of Book I is spent on the origins, modes of storage, and
ism of water transport. The first digression comes during Agricola’s transportation of water in the earth, but Agricola devotes the last
refutation of the idea that precipitation could supply the earth’s few pages to the properties of waters and to how they make the
total water budget. If alpine springs flow throughout the year but other type of subterranean fluid, juice. Much of this discussion is
rain is not falling all the time, some of the spring water must be drawn from Vitruvius (De Architectura, VIII: iii). First Agricola treats
coming not from rain but from a storage area. Since water cannot color. Pure waters are colorless; juices have various colors whose
flow uphill, this storage area must be within the mountain at a type and intensity depend on what kind and how much rock is dis-
place higher up than the spring – a common idea at the time, cap- solved in the water. He agrees with Vitruvius that temperature
illary rise not yet being understood. This leads Agricola to consider controls solubility (Vitruvius, De architectura, VIII: ii, 9): hotter
how the earth stores water. The Greco-Roman literature on this waters contain more dissolved matter, and are more strongly col-
subject was less voluminous than the discussions of hot springs, ored, than cold ones. Agricola discusses the colors of juices in the
but Agricola still had to consider several classical opinions. Plato terms of Galen’s humoral theory of physiology, comparing the col-
suggested that groundwater resided in Lake Tartarus and peri- or changes of juices to the color changes involved in concocting
odically sloshed up to the surface (Plato, Phaedo, 112a), although
he may not have been serious: Pierre Perrault thought that Plato
had been constructing a diverting tale, not discussing science
(Nace, 1974). In contrast, Aristotle took Plato’s suggestion seriously
enough to offer a pointed refutation (Aristotle, Meteorology, II: 2).
Aristotle himself thought that water was held in potlike ‘‘recep-
tacula’’ (Aristotle, Meteorology I: 13) and most other ancient writ-
ers related these to subterranean lakes to analogous lakes on the
surface (Adams, 1938). Agricola became the first to dissent from
the belief in receptacles and underground lakes. None such have
been found, he says, ‘‘even by diggers of metals, who almost turn
mountains inside out: therefore either there is no such thing [as
a receptacle], or else if there is, it cannot be the source of foun-
tains,’’ he says (Agricola, 1546a). The ‘‘if there is’’ condition is curi-
ously inconsistent with his complete denial of the existence of such
receptacles later in De Ortu.
Agricola’s second digression is a study of how water moves
through the earth. The ancient authorities had written a great deal
on this subject, beginning with Anaxagoras’ contention that water
ran underground in rivers very much like the streams on the earth’s
surface (Fig. 1; known from quotation of Anaxagoras by Hippolytus, Fig. 3. Groundwater receptacles (‘‘hydrophylacia’’) inside mountains, supplying
Refutation of All Heresies, I: 7). This idea was probably yet another alpine springs. From Kircher (1678).
844 I.F. Barton / Journal of Hydrology 523 (2015) 839–849

blood from phlegm, yellow bile from blood, black bile from yellow next they carry off the harder earth; then even the stones rush
and so forth. This analogy was probably suggested by similar down. And thus, over some years, they excavate the level plains...
analogies that Vitruvius (De Architectura, VIII: iii, 26) and Seneca And in the same way they make caverns, digging them out to a
(Quaestiones Naturales, III: xv) had made between the circulation wondrous depth over many lifetimes of men (Agricola, 1546a)...’’
of water through the earth and of fluids in the human body. Agri- Agricola further expounds the softening effects of water on rock,
cola continues with how juices are made: water erodes metals or and suggests that the most rounded landforms are the ones longest
earths and becomes a juice with a color and taste corresponding exposed to erosion. His words reflect an early concept of deep
to the species it is mixed with. He enumerates and describes sev- time: ‘‘When, where, and how began these many and great
eral types of juices. All juices, he says, come from mixing earth changes are so remote from the memory of man, on account of
with water, except for oils, which float on water and therefore par- their antiquity, that it is not plain that they are happening,
take of air, in the Aristotelian elemental scheme. although they do happen in a very great degree (Agricola,
1546a).’’ Later, he adds, ‘‘Because most places do not change
2.2. Book II through many ages, to the ignorant, this kind of change does not
seem to happen (Agricola, 1546a).’’
Book II contains a discussion, parallel in structure and subject to The idea of erosion is not entirely original to Agricola, but the
Book I, about the origins and actions of air within the earth. As with idea of erosion as an active process working over longer-than-hu-
groundwater, Agricola begins with whether subterranean air flows man timescales is original. The Persian polymath Avicenna had rec-
into the earth from outside or arises within the earth. This, too, had ognized that water and wind sculpted landscapes, but Avicenna
been discussed before. Archelaus and Callisthenes thought that all had thought of erosion simply as a process that had carved moun-
air has to enter the earth from outside (known from quotation in tains out of plateaux at some point in the distant past (Geikie,
Seneca, Quaestiones Naturales, VI: xii and xiv); Seneca took the 1905). He did not consider erosion a present-day process, nor did
opposing stance that all air found within the earth originates there he believe that it could level mountains. Agricola differed on both
(Seneca, Quaestiones Naturales, III: xvi). As he had done with the counts. His statements clearly indicate a perception of erosion as
question of whether all water within the earth came in from out- the ongoing leveling of the landscape over very long periods of
side or was created underground, Agricola favors the median view time. His statements about the timescale are so vague that it is
between the two extremes: some of the air is generated within the impossible to judge whether they would be compatible with the
earth, some flows in from outside. But he makes this statement biblical chronology current in Agricola’s day. This vagueness may
only as an assertion, supports it with the comment that more air have been deliberate caution to avoid provoking the religious
comes out of the earth than flows into it, and drops the subject authorities, or it may simply reflect a reluctance to over-interpret
in favor of a disquisition on the movement of air within the earth. observations.
This, along with much of the rest of Book II of De Ortu, is lifted Book III also contains the exposition of vein formation and clas-
almost bodily from Seneca’s Quaestiones Naturales. (The scholar- sification that Agricola later applied in De Re Metallica; the
ship of Agricola’s days considered such borrowing a compliment Hoovers, who translated De Re Metallica, included this section of
to the original source, not an instance of plagiarism.) This interest De Ortu in the footnotes to Book III (Hoover and Hoover, 1912).
in the movement of subterranean air was a response to the ancient Agricola’s views on veins are mostly a development of his concept
problem of whether air trapped within the earth causes earth- of groundwater movement, discussed in Book I and made respon-
quakes, and whether subterranean water and fire also contribute sible for hydrofracturing in Book II. The formation of veins, and
to terrae motus. This had been one of antiquity’s most vexed ques- type of veins formed, reflect a combination of rock properties
tions about subsurface fluids ever since the days of Anaximenes of and fluid pressure. Veins form when water pressure builds up
Miletus, who had thought that the pressure of rainwater percolat- and finally overcomes the strength of the rock, forcing its way
ing into the ground would shake it (known from quotation in through by creating fractures. This is possible only in the hardest
Aristotle, Meteorology, II: 7). Most philosophers after him were fas- and most brittle rocks, since unconsolidated earth and soft rock
cinated by his idea, whether or not they agreed with it (e.g. the dis- permit water to pass through their pores and fracturing is there-
cussion by Seneca, Quaestiones Naturales, VI: xvi–xviii; Tonini, fore unnecessary. The force of the water also makes a difference.
1977). Accordingly, Agricola fills the rest of Book II of De Ortu with Forceful water shatters the rocks and creates many small veinlets,
an inconclusive discussion of the various ancient opinions about resulting in what the modern geologist might call a pseudobreccia.
the seismogonic role of underground air, most of the text taken If the water is under less pressure and the rocks are softer and
straight from Books III and VI of Seneca’s Quaestiones Naturales easier to penetrate, the water will flow through many pores
and Book II of Aristotle’s Meteorologia, and very little of it bearing throughout the rock layer instead of creating many small veinlets
on hydrology. Hydrologic matters crop up only once, where Agrico- to channel flow. This slow percolation results in the replacement
la explains that when earthquakes shut off a flowpath, groundwa- deposits or venae cumulatae and low-dipping veins or venae dilata-
ter will force a new path open. As evidence he cites the appearance tae; the violent shattering creates the narrower, high-dipping
of new springs in regions where recent earthquakes have stopped venae profundae, all of which are discussed and beautifully illus-
up old springs. This is the first known expression of the idea of trated in De Re Metallica (Agricola, 1556).
hydrofracturing and derives from Agricola’s concept, from Book I, For the rest of Book III Agricola discusses the properties of
of water movement through veins and pores rather than in under- juices, referring the reader to a longer and more detailed exposi-
ground rivers. It later helped to support the theory of ore deposit tion in De Natura Fossilium. He also treats the solidification of juices
and mineral formation that he advanced in De Re Metallica into earth and stones. He held to the reigning belief that juices con-
(Agricola, 1556). geal either by heat or by cold, creating different types of rock
(found in Aristotle, Meteorology, IV: 5–8 and Albertus Magnus,
2.3. Book III Mineralia, I: i: 5, among others). Although interesting to economic
geology – among other things, his statements show that Agricola
Book III of De Ortu is more relevant to hydrology and fascinated clearly understood that water transforms sulfide to oxide ores –
Athanasius Kircher and Nicolaus Steno (Adams, 1938). It concerns this review is not germane to the history of hydrology. But the clos-
the consequences of water flow in and on the ground. The first of ing discussion of how the flow paths of water determine the con-
these is erosion. ‘‘For first the torrents wash away the soft earth; figuration of the minerals they precipitate is more relevant.
I.F. Barton / Journal of Hydrology 523 (2015) 839–849 845

Agricola states that water diffusing slowly through a rock unit pro- it. For Agricola it seemed natural that the quality of the product
duces fine, disseminated minerals; water localized into a few chan- should correlate with the quality of the reactants (Dibner, 1958;
nels produces small pockets of coarser minerals. He also explains Norris, 2009); Albertus Magnus had explicitly taken this view
stalactites as the result of juices dripping from above, and crusts (Albertus Magnus, Mineralia, III: ii: 5). In Book V Agricola develops
as the result of crystals mimicking the shape of the substrate they this into a catalog of which juices, formed from how much water
grow upon. mixed with how much earth of what type, will produce which met-
als. Metals, because they were solid but melted upon heating, con-
2.4. Books IV–V sisted of mixed earth and water solidified by cold; earth provided
solidity, water provided liquidity, and cold was the congealing
Books IV and V of De Ortu treat stones, which Agricola views as agent since heat undid its work.
solidified juices (like Albertus Magnus, Mineralia, III: i: 3). These The catalog, like most of Agricola’s catalogs, is tedious, but the
juices, as he states in Book I, consist of mixed earth and water. idea behind it has more significance than is obvious to the modern
Heating or cooling removes the water, congealing the remainder mindset. Geologists today take it for granted that most minerals
into a solid stone. In giving water such a prominent role in forming form by inorganic processes, but in Agricola’s time this idea
minerals, Agricola differs from Aristotle and Theophrastus, who involved a considerable departure from the standard model of
attributed them to vapors and to earth respectively (Aristotle, mineral generation. Common opinion held it that stones grew
Meteorology, III: 6; Theophrastus, On Stones, I: 1). The idea of min- within the earth in just the same way as plants and other living
eral formation from an infused water acted upon by cold resembles organisms grew above it (Norris, 2009). This was no academic
the opinions of Albertus Magnus (Albertus Magnus, Mineralia, I: i: exercise in analogy, but a guideline applied to mining: the Roman
3–5, III: i: 2–4). In Agricola’s expansion of Albertus’ view, water is geographer Strabo records (Strabo, Geography, V: 2) that the iron
the most important constituent of stones and of metals, for the mines on Elba and the limestone quarries of Rhodes periodically
type of juice and the amount of water in it determines the color, suspended operations to allow the ore and stone to grow back
hardness, density, and ease of melting of whatever precipitates. again after mining had ‘‘pruned’’ them (Dibner, 1958). Moreover,
Agricola’s inclusion of ease of melting in these characteristics is not only were minerals supposed to grow like plants, they were
another Aristotelian touch: anything that could become liquid commonly believed to improve with time. Aristotle had said that
had to partake of the element of water, so a stone that melted read- improvement was the end of all change (Aristotle, Metaphysics, I:
ily had to involve more water than one that remained solid during 3) and throughout antiquity and the Middle Ages it was generally
heating. Aristotle’s chief philosophical student Theophrastus had believed that all metals and stones were gold and jewels in embryo,
said the same (Theophrastus, On Stones, II: 9). In Book V Agricola so (for instance) galena would eventually morph into gold unless
explains that metals, rocks, and minerals melt more or less easily mining interrupted its progress (Dibner, 1958). Even Albertus, who
according to the amount and quality of water and juice that inhere laid the groundwork for much of Agricola’s theory of mineral forma-
in them. tion, thought that all minerals grew into gold and jewels over time
Book IV also includes what may be the first description of a (Albertus Magnus, Mineralia, III: ii: 6). Agricola’s insistence that min-
hydrothermal breccia in the literature of earth science. Agricola erals only precipitated via inorganic processes (cold or heat) and
comments that water and juice entering rock layers can precipitate that underground juices had to be present for minerals to form or
minerals entirely different from the contents of the host rocks. This grow was thus a much more radical statement than it looked like.
leads him to suggest that rocks that consist of cemented lithic frag- Other properties of juices, according to Book V of De Ortu, com-
ments formed when a juice precipitated the cementing material bine with pore type to determine the mechanical properties of
into the pile of clasts. This recalls a short description, in Book II rocks. Rocks solidified from a diverse mix of juices are mechanical-
of De Natura eorum quae Effluunt ex Terra, of a rock that consists ly heterogeneous and their pores are unevenly distributed, so they
of limestone fragments cemented by a different calcareous rock, can only be worked with great difficulty if at all. Contrarily, homo-
probably travertine (Agricola, 1546b). geneous rocks with pores evenly distributed transmit the force of
The idea of hydrothermal cementation leads Agricola back to hammer blows and break properly.
his earlier discussion of how water moves through rocks, this time Most of the rest of Book V is an extended comparison of the
on a less philosophical and more technical level. In order for rocks opinions of Albertus Magnus and ibn Juljul (‘‘Gilgil Mauritanus’’)
to receive the cementing or lapidifying juice, they must possess on the origins of metals. Albertus had attempted to reconcile Aris-
some kind of pores. These pores, Agricola says, therefore control totle’s opinion that metals formed from a combination of smoky
the distribution of alteration minerals. Many small, evenly dis- and dry exhalations with the Arabic alchemical hypothesis that
tributed pores distribute the heat and cold that cause juices to pre- all metals were combinations of sulfur and mercury. Ibn Juljul,
cipitate stones, whereas large or unevenly distributed pores noticing some similarities in the properties of metal and glass, sug-
localize heat and cold. If the pores spread the heat or cold evenly gested fused ash formed the basis for both substances (Albertus
throughout the rock volume, the congealing force is dissipated over Magnus, Mineralia, III: i: 4; Wyckoff, 1967). Agricola, as described,
the whole volume and the juice is nowhere heated or cooled thought that metals congealed from earth-infused waters or juices
enough to form metals and precious stones. However, if pores in – a concept slightly closer to Albertus’ opinion than to Ibn Juljul’s,
the rock channelize and thereby localize heat or cold, the congeal- though not resembling either very much. One aspect of Book V is
ing force is concentrated on relatively small aliquots of the juice, striking, and that is when Agricola contradicts Albertus Magnus
which therefore precipitate abundant metals and precious stones. by giving a correct account of the origin of placer deposits. Gold
According to Agricola, this is why some rocks have abundant min- is not, as Albertus had claimed, generated in streams (Mineralia,
eralization and others are barren. The pores also determine the III: 1: 10); rather, the gold in placers is merely one item in the
hardness and workability of the rock: if water is able to percolate detritus that streams carry away from mountains they erode. This
throughout the rock it becomes friable and falls apart. is the last of many examples in Agricola’s work where one of his
The type of stone that precipitates depends on the quality of the theories linked with another – in this case, erosion with the origin
juice. Juices that consist mostly of pure water and contain a mini- of ore deposits. Later, in his more famous book De Re Metallica, he
mum of earth will produce the most precious stones; the less the would build his concept of groundwater movement into the ances-
pure water and the more the earthy admixture in the juice, the tor of the modern theory of hydrothermal ore deposit formation.
lower down the value scale will be the stone that precipitates from Here ends De Ortu et Causis.
846 I.F. Barton / Journal of Hydrology 523 (2015) 839–849

3. Evaluation of De Ortu he took original turns. His modification of Avicenna’s ideas about
erosion is subtle but new, and though Seneca had gone halfway
The five books and eighty pages of De Ortu et Causis contain to attributing a little groundwater movement to flow in fractures,
almost nothing that others had not discussed before. The hydro- no one else had favored veins and fractures to the total exclusion
logical questions that occupied Agricola were all part of the classi- of underground rivers. The idea that pores, veins, and fissures in
cal and medieval canon; the Greeks and Romans had thought and rocks could store water as well as transmit it was also novel, and
written about the origins of subterranean waters, their storage and there is no known precedent for Agricola’s ascription of placer
mode of passage in the earth, their role in causing earthquakes, hot deposits to erosion and deposition rather than to spontaneous gen-
springs and assorted other phenomena, and the formation of min- eration in rivers. His inorganic concept of mineral deposition,
erals. The medieval alchemists had described the various mixtures derived from his views of how water moved through rocks, owed
of metals, earths, and juices, their tastes, colors, odors, and densi- much to Albertus Magnus but went far beyond what Albertus
ties, and had described their supposed roles in determining the had done.
properties of metals and minerals. Agricola admitted most of these One of Agricola’s most substantial contributions to hydrology
debts: his book is larded throughout with citations from Aristotle, was more philosophical than technical. His rejection of subter-
Theophrastus, Pliny, Ovid, Lucretius, Vitruvius, ibn Juljul, Avicenna, ranean rivers and organic mineral growth were also a rejection
Albertus, and most of all Seneca. Fig. 4 shows a graphical represen- of the principle of reasoning about the underground by analogy
tation of the intellectual debts of De Ortu to the past and its influ- with the surface. Reasoning by analogy was a mainstay of medieval
ence on future hydrology. science, which united the geocentric universe in a system of
What, then, was the nature of Agricola’s original contribution to macrocosm and microcosm. In that system, everything above had
hydrology? Mostly, it was putting new spins on old answers to old its reflection below, and the two were in sympathy: thus processes
questions. The Greeks and Romans had provided the questions and were similar above and below the surface of the earth, just as the
the variety of answers that Agricola drew together and melded into signs of the Zodiac mapped onto the human body; the homunculus
his own view. He typically echoes Aristotle’s words or reasons from was the microcosm of man just as man was the microcosm of the
Aristotle’s principles on everything from the origins of water to the universe. The world lived and worked on the assumption of some
properties of metals. But even on the well-beaten roads of thought similarity between things above and things below. This implied

Fig. 4. Diagram illustrating the derivation and influence of some of Agricola’s ideas about hydrology. Lines of thought are depicted as arising from particular questions (left
side), typically ancient Greek.
I.F. Barton / Journal of Hydrology 523 (2015) 839–849 847

that water flowed under the ground as it did above it. What Agri- traveled the same way (Halleux, 1982). Nevertheless he, too, con-
cola contributed was the idea of the earth’s subsurface as a place tradicted other of Agricola’s conclusions: he incorrectly denied that
fundamentally different from the surface, and the corollary that water could penetrate more than twenty or thirty feet into the
it could not be understood merely by analogizing. He could and ground, and he correctly derived all surface water from precipita-
did appeal to the natural order of the universe to explain geological tion (Perrault, 1674). Perrault’s quantitative investigations showed,
features, but he did not insist that that order had to be symmetrical for the first time, that precipitation was more than adequate to
about the earth’s surface with below a perfect reflection of above. supply surface waters and groundwater (Nace, 1974). Perrault also
Thus, apart from providing Western earth science with the first performed experiments demonstrating capillarity. In spite of this,
substantially correct assessment of groundwater movement and rather than use capillary rise to get water to mountain springs,
mineral precipitation, Agricola’s concepts represented a major he made an odd combination of his work with Aristotle’s to explain
break with the philosophy of the past. the old problem of the source of water in alpine fountains. Believ-
There is no evidence that Agricola was aware that his style of ing that occasional precipitation could not supply perennial alpine
reasoning represented such radical breaks. His discussion of sub- springs, he argued that the sun’s heat causes subterranean
terranean water movement begins in Book I as a digression from evaporation, so that steam rising through the earth and condensing
the main issue, the origin of groundwater. Water movement recurs supplies the springs in the mountains (Nace, 1974).
several times throughout De Ortu, a persistent but casual issue in Steno had certainly read Agricola; sections of his Prodromus
the book, as if its author did not expect or intend it to stimulate read like summaries of the analogous parts of De Ortu et Causis.
any objections. Only in one place in De Ortu did he seem to have His borrowings were heaviest in the subjects of mineral origin by
any concerns about the philosophical impact of his work: in the precipitation from groundwater, in the partial origin of water by
middle of Book II a pious paragraph protests his orthodoxy against condensation from subterranean steam, and in the derivation of
the Stoic, half-pantheistic belief in vitalism that he had just quoted hot springs from groundwater heated by subterranean fire, but
from Seneca. Groundwater flow through fractures and veins he also followed Agricola’s explanation of how water moves
seemed like an innocuous suggestion, but he was apparently con- through the earth by veins and pores rather than through rivers
cerned that carrying the analogy between the earth and a living underground, and agreed with Agricola’s concepts of the effects
body as far as Seneca had would be deviating too far from Catholic of water-saturation on the strength of rocks (Steno, 1669). He
orthodoxy. adapted the novel concept of groundwater movement to the Bibli-
cal Deluge, suggesting that that the flood had happened when the
seawater that infiltrated into the earth welled up and spilled over
4. Influence of De ortu on early hydrological science onto the land upon finding its customary pores and passageways
blocked (Steno, 1669). He also agreed with Agricola that wind
Agricola’s influence, direct and indirect, is visible in the work of and water, primarily water, sculpted mountains (Steno, 1669).
most of the key figures in the early science of hydrology (Fig. 4). Steno also made use of catastrophism to reconcile Biblical chronol-
Bernard Palissy’s work parallels Agricola’s in several places ogy with geological evidence and with Agricola’s concept of ero-
through the Discours admirable. His explanation of the causes of sion as sculpting mountains, and accordingly repeated several of
hot springs and earthquakes is identical to Agricola’s and he con- Agricola’s remarks about the role of earthquakes in shaping the ter-
siders groundwater to move by percolating through cracks and fis- rain and changing the courses of rivers (Steno, 1669).
sures (Palissy, 1584). He also acknowledges that some fraction, Apart from his influence on the thoughts of these individual
though small, of the groundwater supply comes from the conden- contributors to hydrology, Agricola voiced several of the key con-
sation of steam heated by burning bitumen (Thompson, 1954). The cepts that later became the common intellectual basis of earth
parallels are so close that it is tempting to claim Palissy based his science: active erosion over a long timescale; groundwater flow
conclusions on Agricola. Lynn Thorndike was convinced this was via porosity and its influence on mineral precipitation; the inor-
the case, and Aurèle LaRocque devotes some worthwhile para- ganic processes of mineral generation; and the concept of water-
graphs to discussing the possibility in the Introduction to the rock interaction. All of these concepts he originally published in
translation of the Discours admirable (LaRocque, 1957). However, De Ortu.
it is not certain; none of Agricola’s books had been translated when Most of these innovations were not immediately accepted. The
the Discours admirable was written in 1584, and Palissy boasted his organic view of the Earth stayed around for more than a century.
ignorance of Latin (Palissy, 1584; Deming, 2005). Palissy also Johannes Kepler wrote in 1619 that the earth drank its water from
believed in the receptacle-type groundwater reservoirs that the ocean and digested and assimilated it like an animal, and that
Aristotle had posited and Agricola had denied, and he denied that groundwater and springs were the end products of the living
infiltrating seawater contributed at all to the groundwater supply earth’s digestive tract (Baker and Horton, 1936). A 1657 text wit-
as Agricola had claimed, so if he had absorbed Agricola’s opinions nesses the longevity of the belief that stones lived: the Paduan
he had done so with discrimination (Palissy, 1584). astronomy professor Geminiano Montanari averred that iron
The natural philosopher and physician Jerome Cardan, whose grows rapidly and gold more slowly within the earth (Winter,
De subtilitate was among the major influences on Palissy, had cer- 1916). Agricola’s dominantly inorganic concept of mineral deposi-
tainly read and used Agricola’s work. Perrault referred to Agricola tion and other natural processes only met acceptance in the later
as ‘‘l’avis de Cardan’’ (the teacher of Cardan). Cardan maintained, 17th century, perhaps because of the influence of the corpuscular
like Aristotle and Agricola, that water was produced underground theory of matter, which was not friendly to vitalistic views. Steno
by the condensation of cooled steam (Nace, 1974) and that the explicitly declared in favor of inorganic processes of mineral depo-
steam came from the burning of flammable minerals underground sition, much like the ones Agricola described, throughout the Pro-
(Halleux, 1982). Unlike Agricola, Cardan denied that a substantial dromus (Steno, 1669). Underground rivers also retained their grip
part of the groundwater supply came from infiltrating precipita- on common thought for some decades. The work of Athanasius
tion, using steam as the main source (Tonini, 1977). Kircher (Fig. 3) and Johann Jakob Scheuchzer (Fig. 1) shows that
Perrault himself also owed a good deal to Agricola, in particular belief in underground rivers persisted into the seventeenth and
the concept of water transport through veins and fissures (Perrault, early eighteenth centuries respectively, but Steno, Perrault, Edmé
1674) and the rejection of underground water-storing receptacles Mariotte, and Palissy all favored water transport through pores,
(Perrault, 1674). For that matter, Perrault suggested that magma veins, and fractures, and it was their work that did most to shape
848 I.F. Barton / Journal of Hydrology 523 (2015) 839–849

the nascent science of hydrology (Steno, 1669; Perrault, 1674; Aldrich, M., Leviton, A., Sears, L., 2007. A new aspect of a Renaissance geologist:
Georgii Agricola’s De Animantibus Subterraneis (1549 and 1556). In: Proc. Calif.
Mariotte, 1686; Halleux, 1982); underground rivers made a
Acad. Sci., series 4, vol. 60, no. 9, pp. 89–174.
leisurely exit from the geological literature after the early 18th cen- Anaximenes, 6th cent. B.C.: fragment DK13B1: in Freeman, K., 1948, Ancilla to the
tury. Agricola’s concept of erosion began to find acceptance about Pre-Socratic Philosophers, Harvard University Press, Harvard, MA.
the same time and features prominently in Steno’s Prodromus as Aristotle, 350 B.C.: Metaphysics. Trans. W.D. Ross, 1908. <http://classics.mit.edu//
Aristotle/metaphysics.html> (accessed 02.07.15).
well as in several of the Theories of the Earth published in the late Aristotle, 350 B.C.: Meteorology. Trans. E.W. Webster, 1931. <http://classics.mit.
seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries (Tonini, 1977). The edu//Aristotle/meteorology.html> (accessed 02.07.15).
problems of the timescale of erosion and other geological processes Baker, M.N., Horton, R.E., 1936. Historical development of ideas regarding the origin
of springs and ground-water. Trans. Am. Geophys. Union: Reports and Papers,
loomed large in the scientific and philosophical discussions of the Hydrology, 395–400.
next two centuries (Dean, 1981). Water-rock interaction has been a Bandy, M.C., Bandy, J.A., 1955. De Natura Fossilium (Textbook of Mineralogy):
constant theme in economic geology since the 18th century, and Georgius Agricola: Geological Society of America Special Paper 63.
Dean, D.R., 1981. The age of the earth controversy: beginnings to Hutton. Ann. Sci.
Agricola’s concepts of it also found expression in Robert Boyle’s 38 (4), 435–456.
development of solution chemistry (Multhauf, 1958). Lastly, A.G. Deming, D., 2005. Born to trouble: Bernard Palissy and the hydrologic cycle. Ground
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