Water-Lifting Machines: Vaned Cylinder and Self-Balancing Pumps
A current-driven cylinder and pumps whose raised water forms its own counterweight
Three mechanical studies fill the sheet, keyed to Leonardo's figure numbers 33 and 36: a wheel bearing weights on arched channels, a cylinder fitted with vanes that the water current turns, and a pumping arrangement analogous to an earlier figure (no. 32). In that last scheme water is driven up through vertical pumps and, spilling from their tops, runs along levers from c to a and from f to b, so the delivered water acts as its own counterweight - one of his attempts at a self-sustaining water machine. The word 'continuo' (continuous) is written beside it.
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Pumped water made into a counterweight (after fig. 32)
Water is driven up through vertical pumps and, on leaving their tops, runs along the levers from c to a and from f to b. Reaching the far ends of these levers, the arriving water makes of itself a counterweight, meant to keep the machine running. The mark 'continuo' stands beside the design.
Cylinder with vanes turned by the current
At the upper right a cylinder fitted with vanes is set so that the flowing current makes it rotate, a rotor able to drive linked machinery. It is one of the numbered machine studies (33, 36) Leonardo carried across these folios.
Wheel with weights on arched channels
In the upper-left corner is a detail of a wheel carrying weights that run along arched channels, a study in how shifting weights might keep a wheel turning of itself.