Definition and History of Hydrogeology - Hydrogeology: Objectives, Methods, Applications - page 5

in Argostoli (Cephalonia, Greece), where seawater fl owing into marine
cavities powers millwheels (see chap. A9). Along these lines, Aristotle (4th
century B.C.) thought that the Caspian Sea poured into the Black Sea via
a deep drain. For Anaxagoras (5th century B.C.), this lost seawater fl owed
into enormous underground freshwater reservoirs. Plato (4th century B.C.)
imagined instead that an enormous pit, Tartarus, took in all river discharges
and then fed seas, lakes, rivers, and springs. But in order to accept a marine
origin for fresh water features, one must fi nd a desalinization process and
a mechanism to bring water back up through the earth. Thales (5th century
B.C.), perhaps after observing steam vents on volcanoes and the air currents
within certain caves, proposed that a motor could be found in the push of
the ground and in the subterranean winds. Lucretius (1st century B.C.)
suggested that seawater was fi ltered through the soil in order to remove
its salt.
Nevertheless, a few fundamental mechanisms had been understood.
Aristotle (4th century B.C.) had foreseen the mechanism of evaporation.
Vitruvius (1st century B.C.) had sketched out the water cycle in his
observations that the water in valleys rose from low points, formed clouds,
then rain, and infi ltrated through cracks in the ground to reappear at the
base of mountains. Herodotus (5th century B.C.), then Pliny (1st century)
had grasped the relationship between sinkholes, areas of preferential
infi ltration, and springs.
And yet, Seneca (1st century), synthesizing his predecessors' thoughts
in “Natural Questions,” retained only the idea of an enormous underground
freshwater reservoir fed by the transformation of air into water in
underground cavities.
1.2.3 The Middle Ages and the Renaissance: the underground
still
In the Middle Ages, Greek thought remained accepted only when it was
compatible with the Bible, while the invention of the printing press allowed
the widespread distribution of knowledge.
One of the fi rst works devoted to subterranean water was Jacques
Besson's “The art and science of fi nding water and springs hidden under
ground,” but the true father of hydrogeology was Bernard Palissy, author
of “On Water and Springs” (1580). He demonstrated that the water in
springs originates as rain seeping into fractures and openings below ground
until it reaches impermeable horizons, above which it accumulates into
underground reserves and circulates towards springs. His observations in
caves in the Pyrenees led him to the conclusion that the plumes of steam
exhaled by certain caves were also linked to infi ltrated water.