Anatomia Physico-Hydrostatica Fontium ac Fluminum [The Physico-Hydrostatic Anatomy of Springs and Rivers] (1663): Volume 2

Gaspar Schott's The Physico-Hydrostatic Anatomy of Springs and Rivers was an ambitious attempt to explain the origin and behavior of terrestrial waters through a synthesis of Aristotelian natural philosophy, Jesuit scholasticism, and emerging hydrostatic science. Schott rejects purely speculative explanations—such as the idea that springs arise solely from rainwater percolation or from a universal attractive force of the earth—and instead analyzes springs using mechanical analogies, experiments, and geometrical reasoning. Drawing on hydrostatics, siphon theory, and demonstrations with sand, tubes, and cloth filters, he argues that subterranean water can be transmitted through porous earth, fissures, and hidden channels, rising when conditions of pressure, elevation, and continuity permit. Springs, rivers, and periodic fountains are thus treated as natural hydraulic systems governed by weight, pressure, and structure rather than by occult qualities alone. At the same time, Schott retains a cosmological vision characteristic of Kircherian Jesuit science, proposing that many waters ultimately derive from the sea and circulate through vast underground networks within the earth. Mountains act as reservoirs, the porous strata as conduits, and surface outlets as points where hydrostatic forces drive water to the surface. By combining experiment with large-scale geocosmic analogy, Schott presents the earth as a dynamic hydraulic organism in which tides, pressure variations, and subterranean cavities sustain the continual renewal of springs and rivers. The work stands at a transitional moment in the history of science, where Renaissance analogical reasoning and Baroque natural theology meet the quantitative insights that would characterize geosciences and hydrology.