Paul Adrien Bourdaloue was a French civil engineer and topographer, who proposed the first orthometric levelling

Levelling

Levelling or leveling is a branch of surveying, the object of which is1) To find the elevation of a given point with respect to the given or assumed Datum.2) to establish a point at a given elevation with respect to the given or assumed Datum....

 of France.

Life

Head of the Ponts et Chaussées, then engineer-resident of the Chemins de fer du Gard, from 1847 he carried out the levelling of the area of the future Suez Canal

Suez Canal

The Suez Canal , also known by the nickname "The Highway to India", is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. Opened in November 1869 after 10 years of construction work, it allows water transportation between Europe and Asia without navigation...

 in Egypt at the request of the engineer Linant de Bellefonds

Louis Maurice Adolphe Linant de Bellefonds

Louis Maurice Adolphe Linant de Bellefonds better known as Linant Pasha was an explorer of Egypt and, as the chief engineer of Egypt's public works, 1831–1869, the chief engineer of the Suez Canal.- Life and work :Having taken advantage of a sound education that emphasized mathematics,...

. During this process he and others noted that the difference in levels between the Mediterranean and Red Sea

Red Sea

The Red Sea is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden. In the north, there is the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez...

 was negligible, contrary to the conclusions of Bonaparte

Napoleon I of France

Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...

's engineers on the Egyptian Expedition such as Jacques-Marie Le Père

Jacques-Marie Le Père

Jacques-Marie Le Père was a French civil engineer.-Life:He accompanied the French Campaign in Egypt and Syria, was director of 'Ponts et Chaussées' in Egypt...

.

In 1857 he was commissioned to move onto the general levelling of mainland France

General levelling of France

The General Levelling of France forms a network of benchmarks in mainland France and Corsica, now overseen by the Institut Géographique National. It is now the official levelling network in 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

Mayor

In many countries, a Mayor is the highest ranking officer in the municipal government of a town or a large urban city....

-adjoint of the town of Bourges

Bourges

Bourges is a city in central France on the Yèvre river. It is the capital of the department of Cher and also was the capital of the former province of Berry.-History:...

. In 1865, he entrusted to the architect Albert Tissandier

Albert Tissandier

Albert Tissandier was a French architect, aviator, illustrator, editor and archaeologist. He was the brother of adventurer Gaston Tissandier with whom he collaborated in writing the magazine La Nature, a French language scientific journal aimed at the popularization of science...

 the design of a château d'eau

Water tower

A water tower or elevated water tower is a large elevated drinking water storage container constructed to hold a water supply at a height sufficient to pressurize a water distribution system....

 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