Weighing materials, poisoning trees, and a water clock
A wind-ball's recoil, a cube-based weighing rule, and coins dropped into a bucket
A dense recto mixing physics, horticulture and measurement. Leonardo notes that a pellet inside a wind-ball resists its bounce, then explains how to poison or dry a sapling by boring to its marrow and injecting arsenic and realgar dissolved in aqua vitae. A long passage gives a rule for weighing a square braccio of stone or metal from a small weighed cube, and further notes describe a timekeeping device set to a term and coins dropped one by one into a water-filled bucket. A cube diagram carries the figures 412, 32 and 64.
On this page
A pellet inside a wind-ball resists its bounce
A wind-ball with a pellet placed inside it has the power to impede and resist its bounce.
Poisoning or drying a sapling through a bored hole
By boring a large hole with an auger as far as the marrow of a young tree and injecting arsenic and realgar dissolved in aqua vitae with a syringe, then plugging it with a stout peg, one can make its fruit poisonous or make the tree dry up. It should be done as the fruit ripens, or while the young trees are in sap.
Weighing a square braccio from a small cube
To find the weight of a square braccio of any stone or metal, weigh a cube one eighth of a braccio on each face: a cube of 10 pounds, of which 412 fill a square braccio, gives a square braccio of about 4020 pounds. With water, every strange proportion can be reduced to square braccia.
A clock set to a term (oriolo a termine)
Above a device the hours are marked 6 5 4 3 2 1 for a clock set to run for a fixed term.
Coins dropped into a water bucket
Beside a bucket with coins on its bottom and one coin on top, a note says three lire of coin will be put in, quattrino by quattrino, without pouring out any water.
Figures beside the cube: 412, 32, 64
The numbers 412, 32 and 64 are written beside and below the drawing of a cube, working the weighing rule.