How rivers flow, flood, and reshape their banks
A swollen river runs shorter and straighter; floods scour the bed and cut new channels
The sheet argues that the volume a river carries governs the shape of its course: a lesser flow runs a longer, slower, meandering course between its banks, while a greater abundance runs a shorter, straighter, swifter one. A small lettered figure at the right margin (bank a b c against the low-water course d b f) supports the claim that floods scour the bed level, break the humps left by feeble currents, spill into neighbouring fields and sometimes abandon the old bed. The page is densely written in mirror script and further untranscribed text is present beyond the three blocks given.
On this page
Greater flow runs a shorter, swifter course
A river of lesser quantity runs a longer and slower course between its banks; a river of greater abundance runs a shorter and swifter one. The two paired statements set up the argument that flow-volume governs the very shape of a river's course.
Floods scour the bed and cut new channels
Floods, meeting the bulges of the banks left by the weak low-water currents, strike them with force and rebound from the opposite shore, breaking the humps and often spilling into neighbouring fields, finally directing the course there and abandoning the old bed. The bed grows more even as the flood grows greater, because sand and other matter fill the hollows that the swift swollen water can no longer bend to follow.
Straighter rivers spare the neighbouring properties
Given a continual abundance of water, river courses run continually straighter and deepen, becoming capable of the great floods that often occur, so that the neighbouring properties are not destroyed by them. The lettered figure shows bank a b c to be much shorter than the winding low-water course d b f.