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say that the earth has a spirit of growth; that its flesh is the
soil, its bones the arrangement and connection of the rocks of which
the mountains are composed, its cartilage the tufa, and its blood
the springs of water. The pool of blood which lies round the heart
is the ocean, and its breathing, and the increase and decrease of
the blood in the pulses, is represented in the earth by the flow and
ebb of the sea; and the heat of the spirit of the world is the fire
which pervades the earth, and the seat of the vegetative soul is in
the fires, which in many parts of the earth find vent in baths and
mines of sulphur, and in volcanoes, as at Mount Aetna in Sicily, and
in many other places.
[Footnote: Compare No. 929.]
XVII.
Topographical Notes.
A large part of the texts published in this section might perhaps
have found their proper place in connection with the foregoing
chapters on Physical Geography. But these observations on Physical
Geography, of whatever kind they may be, as soon as they are
localised acquire a special interest and importance and particularly
as bearing on the question whether Leonardo himself made the
observations recorded at the places mentioned or merely noted the
statements from hearsay. In a few instances he himself tells us that
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