A channel, natural or artificial, in which water flows rapidly.
1792. [There is one fall which] is called the flume, and is situate between the townships of Rochester and Lebanon. The flume is about four rods in length, and its breadth is various.—Jeremy Belknap, ‘New Hampshire,’ iii. 62–3.
1818. [Mr. B., while repairing] the flume of a mill, was suddenly swept off, together with the flume, by a large body of ice.—Mass. Spy, March 11.
1821. We passed a brook, known by the name of the Flume; from the strong resemblance to that object, exhibited by the channel, which it has worn for a considerable length in a bed of rocks: the side being perpendicular to the bottom.—T. Dwight, ‘Travels,’ ii. 148–9. (Italics in the original.)
1878. In May and June the congealed floods, on heights 5,000 feet above, are loosed and fill the high flume with a raging torrent.—J. H. Beadle. ‘Western Wilds,’ p. 154.
