The shores of the sea are constantly moving towards the middle of the sea and displace it from its original position.  The lowest portion of the Mediterranean will be reserved for the bed and current of the Nile, the largest river that flows into that sea.  And with it are grouped all its tributaries, which at first fell into the sea; as may be seen with the Po and its tributaries, which first fell into that sea, which between the Appenines and the German Alps was united to the Adriatic sea.

That the Gallic Alps are the highest part of Europe.

1064.

And of these I found some in the rocks of the high Appenines and mostly at the rock of La Vernia. [Footnote 6:  Sasso della Vernia. The frowning rock between the sources of the Arno and the Tiber, as Dante describes this mountain, which is 1269 metres in height.

This note is written by the side of that given as No. 1020; but their connection does not make it clear what Leonardo’s purpose was in writing it.]

1065.

At Parma, at ‘La Campana’ on the twenty-fifth of October 1514. [Footnote 2:  Capano, an Inn.]

A note on the petrifactions, or fossils near Parma will be found under No. 989.]

1066.

A method for drying the marsh of Piombino. [Footnote:  There is a slight sketch with this text in the original.—­Piombino is also mentioned in Nos. 609, l. 55-58 (compare Pl.  XXXV, 3, below).  Also in No. 1035.]

1067.

The shepherds in the Romagna at the foot of the Apennines make peculiar large cavities in the mountains in the form of a horn, and on one side they fasten a horn.  This little horn becomes one and the same with the said cavity and thus they produce by blowing into it a very loud noise. [Footnote:  As to the Romagna see also No. 1046.]

1068.

A spring may be seen to rise in Sicily which at certain times of the year throws out chesnut leaves in quantities; but in Sicily chesnuts do not grow, hence it is evident that that spring must issue from some abyss in Italy and then flow beneath the sea to break forth in Sicily. [Footnote:  The chesnut tree is very common in Sicily.  In writing cicilia Leonardo meant perhaps Cilicia.]

II.

FRANCE.

1069.

GERMANY.  FRANCE.

a.  Austria, a.  Picardy. b.  Saxony. b.  Normandy. c.  Nuremberg. c.  Dauphine. d.  Flanders.

SPAIN.

a.  Biscay. b.  Castille. c.  Galicia. d.  Portugal. e.  Taragona. f.  Granada.

[Footnote:  Two slightly sketched maps, one of Europe the other of Spain, are at the side of these notes.]

1070.

Perpignan.  Roanne.  Lyons.  Paris.  Ghent.  Bruges.  Holland.

[Footnote:  Roana does not seem to mean here Rouen in Normandy, but is probably Roanne (Rodumna) on the upper Loire, Lyonnais (Dep. du Loire).  This town is now unimportant, but in Leonardo’s time was still a place of some consequence.]