Pla de Sant Jordi

drainage channel, Pla de Sant Jordi

But most of all, Paul Bouvij left his mark on Mallorca by draining the mosquito infested marshlands of the Pla de San Jordi in 1845, using a windmill to pump the water from the below sea level swamps for the first time in Mallorca. The drainage channels reach the sea at Can Pastilla and can still be seen today.

Shortly before his death, he published a translation of Die Insel Mallorka by Dr Hermann Alexander Pagenstecher, doctor and naturalist, whose curiosity led him to explore the Island accompanied by Robert Wilhelm Bunsen, chemist and inventor of the burner that bears his name. He married Francisca Mendivil in 1838 and after her death he married her sister. He died in Barcelona in 1867.

Several streets are named after him, invariably using the Spanish spelling of Bouvy, which even he eventually adopted!

Bouvy, P., 1853. Notice sur le tremblement de terre du 15 mai 1851 de l'île de Majorque. Bulletin de la Societé Géologique de la France, pp. 359-364.
Bouvy, P., 1851. Sobre el terremoto ocurrido en la isla de Mallorca el 15 de mayo de 1851. Revista Minera, 2, 26: 375-378.
Bouvy, P. 1851. Continuación de los apuntes sobre los terremotos de la isla de Mallorca. Revista Minera, 2, 32: 556-563.
Bouvy, P., 1867. Informe sobre la canalizcion y distribucion de agua de la ciudad de Palma. Imprenta de Juan Colomar.
Bouvy, P., 1876. Ensayo de una descripcion geologica de la isla de Mallorca, comparada con la isla y el litoral de la cuenca occidental del Mediterraneo. Imprenta de Guasp y Vicens.

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