Photos

Seen wall of the weir face air-side.
The weir of the Gouffre d'Enfer was built between 1862 and 1866 and put out of water in 1870. This weir was to preserve the town of Saint-Etienne of the floods, to ensure a water complement for the city in summer, to increase during the dryness the flow of Furan and to thus attenuate the duration of the unemployment of the factories, to ensure a better hygiene the city by building fed public laundrettes. This weir is of arched Poids type, in masonry (granite hardcores related to the lime mortar) the maximum height above the foundations is of 52m, its length is 102 m, the thickness in peak is of 3,15m and 49m on the higher level of the foundations. The capacity of the tank is 1 200 000m3.