Theater of Machines, Volume II

A decorative drop cap letter W

Now follows the explanation of the first copperplate marked with the Number I.

Water leveling must be done through special instruments.

Since we have now sufficiently shown the test and verification of waters, and teach nothing else in this chapter concerning how to measure or conduct water, unless it be healthy, so that it may be conducted for various necessities and utilities, you should note for the first, for a better understanding of this chapter, that such libration leveling or measurement is nothing else but a measurement which happens through sighting, by which one compares the place where the springs arise with the place to which the water is to be conducted. For as Vitruvius speaks, such happens through instruments, of which we want to set several before your eyes in the following. And you should read the 6th chapter of the 34th Book of Pliny, likewise the fifth book of Strabo, and the whole work of Julius Frontinus, and Petrus Victorius, who described with great heartiness and mighty water structures—which with