Water dismantles mountains and fills the valleys
Erosion toward a spherical earth; springs beneath the mountains
A faint, heavily offset sheet carries a small pen sketch of a mountain with a watercourse, lettered a a and b b, with a b marked as the water. Leonardo writes that water dismantles the mountains and fills the valleys, and would reduce the earth to a perfect sphere if it could. A second note, breaking off, turns to the springs that rise beneath the roots of the mountains at varying distances from those roots.
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Water would grind the earth to a perfect sphere (a a, b b)
In a mountain figure lettered a a and b b, with a b marked as the water, Leonardo writes that water dismantles the mountains and fills the valleys, and would reduce the earth to a perfect sphere if it could.
Springs rising beneath the roots of mountains
A second note beside the figure begins to treat the water that rises beneath the roots of the mountains at various distances from those roots; the passage breaks off unfinished.