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diminish almost half, and if that dryness continueth two or three months longer, ye greatest part dry up and ye other diminish 2/3 or 3/4 from whence one may conclude that if it should cease to rain for a whole year, there would remain but very few fountains, whereof ye most part would be very small, or that they would all wholly cease.

The great rivers as ye Seine diminish oftentimes at ye end of sommer more than 5/6 of their greatness, when ye drought continued not three together: and if there is some fountains wch diminish not above 1/2 or 1/3, it proceeds from hence they have great reservations wch have been digged in ye rocks have driven away ye earth and that they have but small issues: hence it is that they do not by continual rains increase so much as others.  Some philosophers do bring another cause for ye origin of fountains to wit that their is elevated vapours from ye bottom of ye earth wch meeting with rocks at ye top of ye mountain in ye form of vaults, are reduced into water as in ye head of an alembic, and that water afterwards runs to ye foot or in ye hangeing places of ye mountain; by this hypothesis can difficulty be justified, for if A B C is a vault in ye mountain, D [[strikethrough]]?[[/strikethrough]] E F, it is manifest that if ye vapours should be reduced into water in ye hollow at ye surface A B C; it should fall perpendicular towards H G I and not towards L or M and by consequence would never make any fountain; moreover it is denied that there may be such plenty of such caverns in ye mountains and none knows how to prove it, but if it is said that there is such in ye earth at ye side and below A B C it will  be answered that ye vapours fly out from ye side towards A and C and that thence will return but very little water, and because there is almost always found a slippery earth where there is fountains, it seems probable that these pretended water alembeck cannot pass through, and by consequence that fountains that fountains cannot arise from this cause.

[[image:  drawing cross section of mountain, outer peaked surface (with trees) annotated left to right D M E (at top) L F ; the inner arc (cavity) annotated left to right above the line: A B (at top) C, and H G(at center) I below the line, per above explanation]]

Some authors report that fountains have ceased to run after ye opening of great subterranean cavities, whence issued out a great quantity of vapours wch might be resolved into waters in these caverns: to this it may be answered that these histories are to be suspected.  It canot however be denied that there might have been such disposings in ye top of [[strikethrough]] ye [[/strikethrough]] a mountain, principally in such are covered with snow, that ye vapours which might be condensed by ye meeting with a bed of stone as in an Alembic, might form some small stream of water wch might run out at ye side; but this is very hard to meet with, and one canot from thence draw a consequence for other fountains.

It may be objected ye summer rains although very large, do not enter into ye earth above a foot as may be observed in gardins and plowed grounds.  I yet doubt ye experiment; but I maintain that in untilled earth and in wood there are many small channels wch are near enough to ye surface, in wch ye rain waters enters and that these channels are continued to a very great depth, as may be seen in deep digged wells, and that when [[strikethrough]] ? [[/strikethrough]] in rains two or three days together, at ^[[last]] ye top of ye plowed grounds is entirely wet and ye rest of ye water passeth into ye small channels wch are below, and wch have not been broken by ye plowing.

There may be seen in ye caves of ye old observatory royal at Paris many drops of water which fall from ye top of natural stone vaults wch are there but it is easy to observe that these do not proceed from vapours, for they are always seen to run thro some

Transcription Notes:
mandc: changed [[?signified]] to justified.