flume

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A narrow gorge, usually with a stream flowing through it.
2. n. An open artificial channel or chute carrying a stream of water, as for furnishing power or conveying logs.
3. n. A very small swimming pool designed with a propeller or pump to generate a current, allowing a swimmer to swim in place.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A stream; a river.
2. n. In physical geography, in the United States, especially in New England, a narrow defile with nearly vertical walls, the bottom of which is usually occupied by a mountain torrent. The best-known flume is in the Franconia notch of the White Mountains in New Hampshire, on a branch of the Pemigewasset river. It is about a third of a mile in length, having walls from 20 to 50 feet in height.
3. n. An artificial channel for a stream of water to be applied to some industrial use. Flumes for conducting water to mill-wheels are open or covered passages formed of boards, planks, or stone, from which the water falls upon the wheel. In gold-mining regions flumes for furnishing water as a power in hydraulic mining are often extensive structures of planks, carried on heavy timbers over gullies, ravines, or valleys. Flumes are also used to convey water for irrigation, etc.
4. In gold-mining, to carry off in a flume, as the water of a stream, in order to lay bare the auriferous sand and gravel forming the bed.
5. n. An inclined trough in which water runs, used in transporting logs or timbers.
6. In lumbering, to transport, as logs or timbers, by a flume.
7. To conduct a channel or canal, by a flume, along an artificial temporary construction in situations where an earth or masonry channel cannot readily be secured by excavation and embankment.
8. To build a flume or artificial channel and its supporting construction.

Wiktionary

1. n. A ravine or gorge, usually one with water running through.
2. n. An open channel or trough used to direct or divert liquids.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A stream; especially, a passage channel, or conduit for the water that drives a mill wheel; or an artifical channel of water for hydraulic or placer mining; also, a chute for conveying logs or lumber down a declivity.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a narrow gorge with a stream running through it
2. n. watercourse that consists of an open artificial chute filled with water for power or for carrying logs