The New International Encyclopædia/Hirsch, Joseph

HIRSCH, Joseph (1836-1901). A French engineer, of Jewish family, born at Lyons. Educated there, at the Ecole Polytechnique and the Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées, he worked on the canal at Sarrebourg (1866), and there invented the Mittersheim siphon for the automatic control of reservoirs. From 1876 to 1898 he was professor of steam machinery at the Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées. and from 1886 until his death at the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers. He contributed to the Annales of the former school; as member of the juries of award at the Expositions of 1878 and 1889 and as president of the jury of 1900, he wrote valuable reports and lectured on the machinery exhibited at these expositions; and was the author of many treatises on machinery, including Théorie des machines aéro-thermiques (1874-75). His contributions to Lechalas's Encyclopédie should also be mentioned.