Henry Darcy and fluid flows in porous media

To mark the 150th anniversary of the publication of the work of Henry Darcy "Les fontaines publiques de la ville de Dijon" in which he announces the principles of the law which bears his name, this article gives a perspective on the important role played by Henry Darcy's discovery in research on fluid flow in porous media. A section extracted from H. Darcy's book, in which he describes the experiment at the origin of his famous law, is reproduced at the end of this article from. a copy kindly provided by the documentation service of l'Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussees.