Paul Adrien Bourdaloue (4 January 1798,

Bourges Bourges () is a commune in central France on the river Yèvre. It is the capital of the department of Cher, and also was the capital city of the former province of Berry. History The name of the commune derives either from the Bituriges, t ...

- 21 June 1868,

) was a French civil engineer and topographer, who proposed the first orthometric

levelling Levelling or leveling (American English; American and British English spelling differences#Doubled in British English, see spelling differences) is a branch of surveying, the object of which is to establish or verify or measure the height of sp ...

of France. Perpignan Cathedral Nivellement

Life

Head of the

Corps des Ponts et Chaussées The ''Corps des ponts, des eaux et des forêts'' (in English "Corps of Bridges, Waters and Forests") is a technical Grand Corps of the French State (grand corps de l'Etat). Its members are senior officials, mainly employed by the French Ministry of ...

, then engineer-resident of the Chemins de fer du Gard, from 1847 he carried out the

of the area of the future

Suez Canal The Suez Canal ( arz, قَنَاةُ ٱلسُّوَيْسِ, ') is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia. The long canal is a popular ...

in Egypt at the request of the engineer Linant de Bellefonds. During this process he and others noted that the difference in levels between the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the e ...

and

Red Sea The Red Sea ( ar, البحر الأحمر - بحر القلزم, translit=Modern: al-Baḥr al-ʾAḥmar, Medieval: Baḥr al-Qulzum; or ; Coptic: ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϩⲁϩ ''Phiom Enhah'' or ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϣⲁⲣⲓ ''Phiom ǹšari''; T ...

was negligible, contrary to the conclusions of Bonaparte's engineers on the Egyptian Expedition such as

Jacques-Marie Le Père Jacques-Marie Le Père (Paris, 25 April 1763 – Granville, 15 June 1841) was a French civil engineer. Life He accompanied the French Campaign in Egypt and Syria, was director of 'Ponts et Chaussées' (bridges and roads) in Egypt. After accomp ...

. In 1857, he was commissioned to move onto the general levelling of mainland France. From 1857 to 1863, he laid out a network of 15,000 iron seals across France, providing the country's first level-lines. He was maire-adjoint of the town of

. In 1865, he entrusted to the architect

Albert Tissandier Albert Tissandier (1839 – 5 September 1906) was a French architect, aviator, illustrator, editing, editor and archaeologist. He was the brother of adventurer Gaston Tissandier with whom he collaborated in writing the magazine ''La Nature'' ...

the design of a château d'eau at Séraucourt, still visible. He is buried in the cimetière des Capucins at Bourges.

Works

*''Nivellement général de la France'' (1864, several volumes in-8°), ed. Pigelet, Bourges 1798 births 1868 deaths French civil engineers People from Bourges French topographers {{France-engineer-stub