Let the earth turn on which side it may the surface of the waters will never move from its spherical form, but will always remain equidistant from the centre of the globe.
Granting that the earth might be removed from the centre of the globe, what would happen to the water?
It would remain in a sphere round that centre equally thick, but the sphere would have a smaller diameter than when it enclosed the earth.
[Footnote: Compare No. 896, lines 48-64; and No. 936.]
Taken from The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci edited by Jean Paul Richter, 1880.