Reading a Hidden River-Bed, and a Recipe for Oil
A bubbling gurgle marks a fall in the water; a sketched mechanism; and pressing mustard-seed oil
The upper note gives a sign for reading hidden depths in a stream: where a bubbling gurgle rises through otherwise flat water, there is a fall and a rebound of water below. A small sketch of rising bubbles and, in the lower half, a red-chalk drawing of a mechanism accompany the text. A final pen recipe describes making oil from mustard seed, mixed if wished with linseed oil and pressed under the screw-press.
On this page
Signs of a hidden fall in still water
Signs of hidden depths of water: when amid the flat surface you see a bubbling gurgle rise, there is a fall and a rebound of water beneath. The disturbance at the surface betrays a submerged drop in the bed.
Sketch of rising bubbles
A small drawing shows the pullulating bubbles named in the caption, the visible token of the water's rebound. It illustrates the phenomenon described in the note above.
Sketch of a mechanism
A red-chalk drawing in the lower half sketches a device (its caption reads simply 'mechanism'), including a rounded basin-like element at its foot. The mechanism is drawn without accompanying explanatory text.
Pressing oil from mustard seed
Make oil from mustard seed; and to do it more easily, mix the ground seed with linseed oil and put it all under the press. The linseed oil eases extraction under the screw-press.