Studies of Falling Water in Tubes and Vessels
Water descending through tubes and holes forms round streams; with marginal notes on shadow and the arm
A large sheet densely covered with text and small diagrams of vessels, casks and tubes that emit or contain water. Leonardo asks why water falling through a triangular tube rounds itself before the end of its course, argues that a wine's surface is more easily lowered than its depths because it lies between air and wine, and explains why a free-falling column of water does not twist, having no two resistances between which to bend. A channel with a battlement-like notch shows water crossing from side to side, and a lifted tube lets its water spread into a flat circle. In the margins are a short word-list and, written upside down, brief notes on the distance of shadows and on how the turning arm draws the shoulder and half the back.
On this page
Water through a triangular tube rounds its stream
For a container that lets water fall straight down through a triangular tube of equal hollowness, Leonardo asks what cause reduces the stream, before the end of its course, into a round proportion. A note beneath the figure reads 'arduousness.'
The surface of wine is the easiest part to lower
When wine descends through a low vent, its surface makes good the lowering more readily than any other part, because a body enclosed in a less resistant thing moves more easily. The surface wine lies between air and wine, while the deeper wine lies between wine and wine, so the surface, set between a light body and a heavy one, moves the more easily.
A lifted tube spreads its water into a circle
If a tube open at both ends is pressed to the ground, filled, and then lifted swiftly, the water holds for a moment the form it had in the tube, then almost invisibly undoes itself into a circle and spreads out round. If the surface is perfect, the circle grows the wider by as much as the water in the tube stood higher than when spread flat.
Free-falling water cannot twist without two resistances
Water in the tube a c stands straight because a harder body wraps it, but the water free between a b, touching the ground, also does not bend. Surrounded only by air, its impact on the ground so quickly parts the union of the water above that it falls without foundation; finding nowhere to rest, that corporeal line cannot twist, for nothing can twist that lies between no two resistances.
Reversed note: shadows spread more at distance
Written with the sheet turned upside down, a short note observes that shadows of equal quality are more spread apart far off than near. It sits among the observational notes rather than the water diagrams.
Reversed note: the turning arm draws the shoulder
The same reversed note adds that the arm, where it turns, draws after it the shoulder and half the back, a remark on the movement of the human figure. A separate left-margin list of single words (established, rancour, hatred, wrath, exalted, outcome, slaughter, killing) accompanies these jottings.