Rising jets of water and a fire-driven lifting device
The angle of incidence, the behaviour of jets, and lifting weights by fire and vacuum.
This Notebook F page mixes observations on the geometry of moving water with a fire-powered lifting device. Short notes state that water bends only at the angle of incidence (a b c) and that the middle of a falling stream runs to the lowest part of the water it strikes. A larger passage, illustrated with a fan of jets, analyses how water thrown up at different angles falls back, and why upward jets rise and descend with a broken, discontinuous velocity because of the air mixed within them. A marginal sketch shows an apparatus that lifts heavy weights by firing charge in a sealed vessel to drive up a leather bellows-like bottom.
On this page
Water bends only at the angle of incidence
The motion of water never makes angles except the angle of incidence, that is the angle a b c.
The middle of a falling stream seeks the lowest water
In a fall of water, the middle water runs to the lowest part of the water it strikes.
Why inclined jets rise and fall with broken velocity
Of parts of one and the same water rising through the air at different obliquities, the less oblique falls back nearer its origin. Risings from the bottom to the surface never fall back toward the bottom, since they gain no weight without entering the air. Water always rises and descends with a discontinuous velocity, owing to the air it penetrates and the air mixed within it.
Lifting a heavy weight by fire and vacuum
To raise a heavy weight by fire, in the manner of a cornet or cupping-glass: a strong vessel with a hollow of one braccio and ten long, fired below like a bombard and then sealed at once below and above. The bottom, fitted with a leather like a very strong bellows, is then driven up, and this serves to lift any great thing.