Machines for raising water: wind pumps, screws, and counterweights
Water-towers, a waxed-gut screw, and a diver's cork-and-reed respirator
A crowded sheet of water-raising devices, drawn with the leaf turned on its side. Towers are to be filled or fed from an upper trough; one scheme raises water by the force of the wind through a two-valved squirt-pump, another pipes water throughout a whole house, and a geared machine with two counterweights in alternating motion lifts water 'of its own accord,' its ratios worked out in the accompanying figures. Leonardo also gives a recipe for making a flexible screw from waxed, inflated intestines wound on a thin rod, and sketches a diver's respirator of cork and reed.
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Water raised by the force of the wind
A machine at the lower right lifts water by wind power through a squirt-pump fitted with two valves: one on the intake pipe that draws the water, the other on the pipe that expels it.
A flexible screw of waxed intestines
To make this screw, take intestines and inflate them, let them dry, coat them with wax, and wind them around a thin rod. The recipe accompanies a tower fed from an upper trough of water.
Counterweight machine that raises water by itself
A geared machine with two counterweights in alternating motion is designed to make water rise of its own accord. Its numbers set the gearing so that when the large wheel turns once the small shafts wind two braccia of rope, then release to let the water through.
Water piped throughout the house
A device beside the wind pump is a way of raising water on high, by which water can be carried through the whole house by conduits.
Diver's respirator of cork and reed
A small figure is a breathing apparatus for a diver, labelled with its materials, cork and reed.