The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci Part 81

A book of the repairs which ought to be made in walls and banks of rivers where the water strikes them.

A book of the formation of hills of sand or gravel at great depths in water.

927.

Water gives the first impetus to its motion.

A book of the levelling of waters by various means,

A book of diverting rivers from places where they do mischief.

A book of guiding rivers which occupy too much ground.

A book of parting rivers into several branches and making them fordable.

A book of the waters which with various currents pa.s.s through seas.

A book of deepening the beds of rivers by means of currents of water.

A book of controlling rivers so that the little beginnings of mischief, caused by them, may not increase.

A book of the various movements of waters pa.s.sing through channels of different forms.

A book of preventing small rivers from diverting the larger one into which their waters run.

A book of the lowest level which can be found in the current of the surface of rivers.

A book of the origin of rivers which flow from the high tops of mountains.

A book of the various motions of waters in their rivers.

928.

[1] Of inequality in the concavity of a ship. [Footnote 1: The first line of this pa.s.sage was added subsequently, evidently as a correction of the following line.]

[1] A book of the inequality in the curve of the sides of ships.

[1] A book of the inequality in the position of the tiller.

[1] A book of the inequality in the keel of ships.

[2] A book of various forms of apertures by which water flows out.

[3] A book of water contained in vessels with air, and of its movements.

[4] A book of the motion of water through a syphon. [Footnote 7: cicognole, see No. 966, 11, 17.]

[5] A book of the meetings and union of waters coming from different directions.

[6] A book of the various forms of the banks through which rivers pa.s.s.

[7] A book of the various forms of shoals formed under the sluices of rivers.

[8] A book of the windings and meanderings of the currents of rivers.

[9] A book of the various places whence the waters of rivers are derived.

[10] A book of the configuration of the sh.o.r.es of rivers and of their permanency.

[11] A book of the perpendicular fall of water on various objects.

[12] Abook of the course of water when it is impeded in various places.

[12] A book of the various forms of the obstacles which impede the course of waters.

[13] A book of the concavity and globosity formed round various objects at the bottom.

[14] Abook of conducting navigable ca.n.a.ls above or beneath the rivers which intersect them.

[15] A book of the soils which absorb water in ca.n.a.ls and of repairing them.

[16] Abook of creating currents for rivers, which quit their beds, [and] for rivers choked with soil.

General introduction.

929.

THE BEGINNING OF THE TREATISE ON WATER.

By the ancients man has been called the world in miniature; and certainly this name is well bestowed, because, inasmuch as man is composed of earth, water, air and fire, his body resembles that of the earth; and as man has in him bones the supports and framework of his flesh, the world has its rocks the supports of the earth; as man has in him a pool of blood in which the lungs rise and fall in breathing, so the body of the earth has its ocean tide which likewise rises and falls every six hours, as if the world breathed; as in that pool of blood veins have their origin, which ramify all over the human body, so likewise the ocean sea fills the body of the earth with infinite springs of water. The body of the earth lacks sinews and this is, because the sinews are made expressely for movements and, the world being perpetually stable, no movement takes place, and no movement taking place, muscles are not necessary. -But in all other points they are much alike.

I.

OF THE NATURE OF WATER.

The arrangement of Book I.

930.

THE ORDER OF THE FIRST BOOK ON WATER.

Define first what is meant by height and depth; also how the elements are situated one inside another. Then, what is meant by solid weight and by liquid weight; but first what weight and lightness are in themselves. Then describe why water moves, and why its motion ceases; then why it becomes slower or more rapid; besides this, how it always falls, being in contact with the air but lower than the air. And how water rises in the air by means of the heat of the sun, and then falls again in rain; again, why water springs forth from the tops of mountains; and if the water of any spring higher than the ocean can pour forth water higher than the surface of that ocean. And how all the water that returns to the ocean is higher than the sphere of waters. And how the waters of the equatorial seas are higher than the waters of the North, and higher beneath the body of the sun than in any part of the equatorial circle; for experiment shows that under the heat of a burning brand the water near the brand boils, and the water surrounding this ebullition always sinks with a circular eddy. And how the waters of the North are lower than the other seas, and more so as they become colder, until they are converted into ice.

Definitions (931. 932).

931.

OF WHAT IS WATER.