A siphon that will not work
Codex Leicester, Sheet 3A, folio 34v |
Leonardo proposed ingenious devices for measuring the speed of a ship, the force of falling water, the variations in speed of river flow and the change in volume when water evaporates. As an engineer, he designed pile drivers for use in constructing dams, described how to divert rivers and suggested ways to build dams, weirs, locks, bridges and canals that minimized erosion and sediment deposits. Concerned with the problem of swamp drainage, he studied siphons and how they might be used for that purpose. He briefly described a snorkel device for use by divers, but kept secret a method for remaining underwater for long periods of time, fearing, as he wrote in the Codex Leicester, "the evil nature of men who would practice assassinations at the bottom of the seas by breaking the ships in their lowest parts and sinking them...."
|
