Jules Carvallo (1820 in

Talence Talence (, ; , ; ) is a commune in the department of Gironde, administrative region of New Aquitaine, France. It is the third-largest suburb of the city of Bordeaux, and is adjacent to it on the south side. It is a member of the Bordeaux Mét ...

Gironde Gironde ( , US usually , ; , ) is the largest department in the southwestern French region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine. Named after the Gironde estuary, a major waterway, its prefecture is Bordeaux. In 2019, it had a population of 1,623,749.

– 1916) was a French engineer. After having graduated with the highest honors at the

École Polytechnique (, ; also known as Polytechnique or l'X ) is a ''grande école'' located in Palaiseau, France. It specializes in science and engineering and is a founding member of the Polytechnic Institute of Paris. The school was founded in 1794 by mat ...

and

École des Ponts et Chaussées École or Ecole may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * Éco ...

, he was attached as engineer to the Southern Railroad; and under his direction the lines from Tech to Rivesaltes and from Tet to Perpignan were built, including the remarkable viaduct of

Bouzanne The Bouzanne () is an long river in the Indre '' département'' of central France, and is a tributary of the Creuse. Its source is in the commune of Aigurande, northwest of the town itself, near the hamlet of ''la Bouzanne''. It flows generall ...

. Afterward Carvallo became director of the work of canalizing the

Ebro The Ebro (Spanish and Basque ; , , ) is a river of the north and northeast of the Iberian Peninsula, in Spain. It rises in Cantabria and flows , almost entirely in an east-southeast direction. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea, forming a de ...

(Spain); and he established in the delta of that river a system of irrigation which permitted the cultivation of enormous tracts of land hitherto unproductive. From Spain Carvallo went to Italy, where he directed the works of the Roman railroads. On his return to Spain he was entrusted with the building of the line from

Pamplona Pamplona (; ), historically also known as Pampeluna in English, is the capital city of the Navarre, Chartered Community of Navarre, in Spain. Lying at near above sea level, the city (and the wider Cuenca de Pamplona) is located on the flood pl ...

Zaragoza Zaragoza (), traditionally known in English as Saragossa ( ), is the capital city of the province of Zaragoza and of the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Aragon, Spain. It lies by the Ebro river and its tributaries, the ...

, and later became the chief engineer of a Spanish water company. Carvallo was the author of many dissertations printed in the ''Comptes-Rendus do l'Académic des Sciences'' and in many other scientific publications. Among his numerous contributions the most noteworthy were those on the piling up and solidification of embankments; on the formula of the maximum of stability and minimum of expense in public works; on the laws of oscillation of chain bridges, etc. Amid his numerous works, Carvallo found time to devote himself to Jewish interests. He was one of the founders of the

Alliance Israélite Universelle The Alliance israélite universelle (AIU; ; ) is a Paris-based international Jewish organization founded in 1860 with the purpose of safeguarding human rights for Jews around the world. It promotes the ideals of Jewish self-defense and self-suffi ...

, and for many years served on the executive committee of that institution. He was a Saint-Simonian. According to M. Chouraqui, he was considered too open to Christianity, in that he considered the possibility that Jesus had a mission from providence.Elie Kedourie, ''Arabic Political Memoirs and Other Studies''. London: Frank Cass, 1974, p. 74.

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* École Polytechnique alumni École des Ponts ParisTech alumni Corps des ponts 1820 births 1916 deaths People from Talence 19th-century French Sephardi Jews French civil engineers French people of Portuguese-Jewish descent Saint-Simonists Spanish engineers Jewish socialists {{Civil-engineering-stub