HENRY DARCY'S PUBLIC FOUNTAINS OF THE CITY OF DIJON

Henry Darcy is known to geologists and engineers for his empirical law on fluid flow through porous media. The law appeared as an appendix to his book Les Fontaines publiques de la ville de Dijon, published in 1856 shortly before his death. The book describes the construction of Dijon’s water supply system in 1840, and provides guidance for engineers in the construction similar projects. A recent English translation of Darcy’s 650-page book provides previously unavailable information on Darcy’s research and engineering projects.

Darcy describes how he gauged and selected a spring to divert to Dijon via a 12-km underground aqueduct. He built two reservoirs, 13 kilometers of pipes and 115 street fountains for the city. These fountains supplied free water for all inhabitants, water for flushing the streets, and water for fire pumps. Whereas prior to 1840 Dijon had a meager supply of poor quality water, after the completion of Darcy’s project, Dijon became second only to Rome in terms of water quality and quantity.

Part 1 of the book describes the historical attempts to provide water for Dijon. Part 2 discusses the construction of the aqueduct and the internal distribution system. Part 3 presents experiments that Darcy conducted on the aqueduct and distribution system. Part 4 describes the appropriation of the springs, which belonged to a nearby village, and purchase of the property under which the aqueduct would be built. The appendix contains eight sections on such topics as the water supply systems of London and major French cities, artificial and natural filtration of river water, Darcy’s Law, and pipe making. A separate 28-plate atlas includes Darcy’s drawings of the components of the Dijon water supply system, the Pitot tube, and the apparatus Darcy used for his experiments on water flow though sand.

The presentation will include biographical information about Darcy, engineering drawings from the atlas, and photographs of the present-day remains of Darcy’s water supply system.