gnawing at mountains

an anachronism, the brooding artist’s demimonde? / Near the rue Princesse they had opened / a gallery cum souvenir shop which featured / fuzzy off-color Monets next to his acrylics, no doubt, T S Eliot, The Waste Land, 1922

Caves might be seemingly made of stone, but they are made by water. It all starts when rainwater dissolves carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or soil, producing a dilute carbonic acid that dissolves the limestone, creating room for itself – the cave system. Other acids like sulphuric acid (formed from sulphur compounds in organic sediments) also occur in ground water, and contribute to the process. How fast can water dissolve its way through rock? Think ten millimetres in 1,000 years. As Da Vinci examined the motion of waves and currents, he was the first to postulate the principle of erosion: "Water gnaws at mountains and fills valleys. If it could, it would reduce the earth to a perfect sphere."

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