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Pierre Perrault (c. 1608, in
Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
– 1680, in Paris) was a Receiver General of Finances for Paris and later a scientist who developed the concept of the
hydrological cycle The water cycle, also known as the hydrologic cycle or the hydrological cycle, is a biogeochemical cycle that describes the continuous movement of water on, above and below the surface of the Earth. The mass of water on Earth remains fairly const ...
. He and
Edme Mariotte Edme Mariotte (; ; c. 162012 May 1684) was a French physicist and priest (abbé). He is particularly well known for formulating Boyle's law independently of Robert Boyle. Mariotte is also credited with designing the first Newton's cradle. Biogr ...
were primarily responsible for making
hydrology Hydrology () is the scientific study of the movement, distribution, and management of water on Earth and other planets, including the water cycle, water resources, and environmental watershed sustainability. A practitioner of hydrology is calle ...
an experimental science.


Life

Perrault grew up in a bourgeois family, had at least seven siblings, and probably lived all his life in Paris. Little is known about his life, despite the fame of some of his younger brothers. These include
Claude Claude may refer to: __NOTOC__ People and fictional characters * Claude (given name), a list of people and fictional characters * Claude (surname), a list of people * Claude Lorrain (c. 1600–1682), French landscape painter, draughtsman and etcher ...
, an architect of part of the
Louvre Palace The Louvre Palace (french: link=no, Palais du Louvre, ), often referred to simply as the Louvre, is an iconic French palace located on the Right Bank of the Seine in Paris, occupying a vast expanse of land between the Tuileries Gardens and the ...
; Nicholas, a doctor of theology known for his denunciation of the
Jesuits , image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders = ...
; and Charles, author of ''
Tales of Mother Goose Tales may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Tales'' (album), a 1995 album by Marcus Miller * ''Tales'' (film), a 2014 Iranian film * ''Tales'' (TV series), an American television series * ''Tales'' (video game), a 2016 point-and-click adventure ...
''. Perrault was trained as a lawyer, and in 1654 purchased the position of
Receiver General A receiver general (or receiver-general) is an officer responsible for accepting payments on behalf of a government, and for making payments to a government on behalf of other parties. See also * Treasurer * Receiver General for Canada * Rece ...
of Finances for Paris. This post involved collecting taxes for
Louis XIV , house = Bourbon , father = Louis XIII , mother = Anne of Austria , birth_date = , birth_place = Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France , death_date = , death_place = Palace of Ve ...
, and he received a percentage of the taxes he collected. This position ruined him when Louis XIV chose to calm rebellious taxpayers by granting a remission of all taxes that were still owed after 10 years. Pierre had used some of his tax receipts for 1664 to pay creditors, and when he could not deliver the money to the royal treasury, he was forced into bankruptcy. After the bankruptcy Perrault became an amateur scientist and focused his attention on the origin of springs. The result of his labor was his book ''de l'Origine des fontaines'' (''On the Origin of Fountains''), published anonymously in 1674 and dedicated to his friend
Christiaan Huygens Christiaan Huygens, Lord of Zeelhem, ( , , ; also spelled Huyghens; la, Hugenius; 14 April 1629 – 8 July 1695) was a Dutch mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and inventor, who is regarded as one of the greatest scientists ...
.


''On the Origin of Springs''

In the millennia before Perrault published his book, most
natural philosophers Natural philosophy or philosophy of nature (from Latin ''philosophia naturalis'') is the philosophical study of physics, that is, nature and the physical universe. It was dominant before the development of modern science. From the ancient wor ...
asserted that there was not enough
precipitation In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls under gravitational pull from clouds. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, sleet, snow, ice pellets, graupel and hail. ...
to account for the flow in rivers and springs.
Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ...
claimed that most of the water came from caverns in which air was transformed into water. Many others argued that
seawater Seawater, or salt water, is water from a sea or ocean. On average, seawater in the world's oceans has a salinity of about 3.5% (35 g/L, 35 ppt, 600 mM). This means that every kilogram (roughly one liter by volume) of seawater has app ...
entered caverns, was heated until it rose as vapor, then condensed and fed springs, which in turn fed rivers. Although some philosophers such as
Anaxagoras Anaxagoras (; grc-gre, Ἀναξαγόρας, ''Anaxagóras'', "lord of the assembly";  500 –  428 BC) was a Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher. Born in Clazomenae at a time when Asia Minor was under the control of the Persian Empire, ...
had more realistic models of the hydrologic cycle, the weight of authority was behind the more fanciful theories. Perrault devoted the first part of his book, ''On the Origin of Springs'', to analyzing the ideas of his predecessors and what he called the "Common Opinion", rejecting most of it. He estimated the flow in the
Seine River ) , mouth_location = Le Havre/ Honfleur , mouth_coordinates = , mouth_elevation = , progression = , river_system = Seine basin , basin_size = , tributaries_left = Yonne, Loing, Eure, Risle , tributarie ...
and compared it with rainfall in the watershed, showing that the rainfall was easily enough to account for the flow in the river. This conclusion was later supported by a more rigorous quantitative analysis published by Edme Mariotte. With a series of experiments, Perrault showed that rain does not penetrate the soil beyond about . Thus, most of the rain that falls does not go into springs. Perrault went on to develop the theory of the hydrologic cycle, correctly accounting for the roles of
evaporation Evaporation is a type of vaporization that occurs on the surface of a liquid as it changes into the gas phase. High concentration of the evaporating substance in the surrounding gas significantly slows down evaporation, such as when h ...
, transpiration,
throughflow In hydrology, throughflow, a subtype of interflow (percolation), is the lateral unsaturated flow of water in the soil zone, typically through a highly permeable geologic unit overlying a less permeable one. Water thus returns to the surface, as ret ...
and surface runoff.


Notes


References

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Perrault, Pierre 1608 births 1680 deaths French geologists French hydrologists French geophysicists Scientists from Paris