Leonardo da Vinci designed a bucket chain to lift water continuously.
A bucket chain uses linked buckets attached to a moving chain. As the buckets descend, they fill with water; as they rise, they carry the water to a higher level and empty it. Leonardo studied this kind of mechanism in connection with irrigation, drainage, canals, and the general problem of moving water with mechanical power.
The principle is different from a water screw. A screw carries water along a spiral channel, while a bucket chain transports separate containers around a loop. Bucket elevators and chain pumps later applied related ideas to water and bulk materials.
Leonardo’s notebooks contain many hydraulic studies, but not every drawing proves that a device was built or operated successfully. His importance here lies in recording and refining mechanisms through careful diagrams, not necessarily in inventing every underlying principle from scratch.