Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.15168

    Diagram of river levels

    Date
    23 January 1670
    Creator
    Unknown, Artist
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Manuscript page number
    p13
    Dimensions
    height (page): 298mm
    width (page): 183mm
    Description
    This diagram is part of a document entitled 'Discourse concerning the best ways of improving England's productivity' by Reason Mellish (1627-1688), the merchant and Nottinghamshire MP.

    With this document, Mellish contributed to a wider discussion about how to establish economic growth in England in which William Petty FRS and Samuel Pepys FRS (among others) were involved.

    This specific drawing illustrates the velocity and thickness of the water in a river. Mellish is reusing a table from Benedetto Castelli, Of the mensuration of running waters (London, 1661), p. 25.
    Transcription
    And the better to explain the example, let us borrow the scheme out of the aforesaid Author [Benedetto Castelli], and let it be supposed that the water of a river AD runneth high at the levell AF with such a certaine velocity: and let it by the same water be velociated three times for. I say that it will abate 2/3 and shall stand at the levell in BE.
    Transcribed by the Making Visible project
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