by Leonardo da Vinci
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Water gives the first impetus to its motion.
A book of the levelling of waters by various means,
A book of diverting rivers from places where they do mischief.
A book of guiding rivers which occupy too much ground.
A book of parting rivers into several branches and making them fordable.
A book of the waters which with various currents pass through seas.
A book of deepening the beds of rivers by means of currents of water.
A book of controlling rivers so that the little beginnings of mischief, caused by them, may not increase.
A book of the various movements of waters passing through channels of different forms.
A book of preventing small rivers from diverting the larger one into which their waters run.
A book of the lowest level which can be found in the current of the surface of rivers.
A book of the origin of rivers which flow from the high tops of mountains.
A book of the various motions of waters in their rivers.
928.
[1] Of inequality in the concavity of a ship. [Footnote 1: The first line of this passage was added subsequently, evidently as a correction of the following line.]
[1] A book of the inequality in the curve of the sides of ships.
[1] A book of the inequality in the position of the tiller.
[1] A book of the inequality in the keel of ships.
[2] A book of various forms of apertures by which water flows out.
[3] A book of water contained in vessels with air, and of its movements.
[4] A book of the motion of water through a syphon. [Footnote 7: cicognole, see No. 966, 11, 17.]
[5] A book of the meetings and union of waters coming from different directions.
[6] A book of the various forms of the banks through which rivers pass.
[7] A book of the various forms of shoals formed under the sluices of rivers.
[8] A book of the windings and meanderings of the currents of rivers.
[9] A book of the various places whence the waters of rivers are derived.
[10] A book of the configuration of the shores of rivers and of their permanency.
[11] A book of the perpendicular fall of water on various objects.
[12] Abook of the course of water when it is impeded in various places.
[12] A book of the various forms of the obstacles which impede the course of waters.
[13] A book of the concavity and globosity formed round various objects at the bottom.
[14] Abook of conducting navigable canals above or beneath the rivers which intersect them.
[15] A book of the soils which absorb water in canals and of repairing them.
[16] Abook of creating currents for rivers, which quit their beds, [and] for rivers choked with soil.
General introduction.
929.
By the ancients man has been called the world in miniature; and certainly this name is well bestowed, because, inasmuch as man is composed of earth, water, air and fire, his body resembles that of the earth; and as man has in him bones the supports and framework of his flesh, the world has its rocks the supports of the earth; as man has in him a pool of blood in which the lungs rise and fall in breathing, so the body of the earth has its ocean tide which likewise rises and falls every six hours, as if the world breathed; as in that pool of blood veins have their origin, which ramify all over the human body, so likewise the ocean sea fills the body of the earth with infinite springs of water. The body of the earth lacks sinews and this is, because the sinews are made expressely for movements and, the world being perpetually stable, no movement takes place, and no movement taking place, muscles are not necessary. ?But in all other points they are much alike.
The arrangement of Book I.
930.
