KLUGER, Władysław

Kluger graduated from the Technical College in Krakow in 1868, and from 1868 to 1873 studied at École des Ponts et Chaussees in Paris. Between 1872 and 1874 he published the first Polish discussions about (Fourneyron) turbines in the newspaper of the Association of Exact Sciences. He and Feliks Kucharzewsky published a textbook in 1873, entitled Hydraulic Teachings and the Theory of Water Devices with an Introduction to the Analytical Mechanics of Liquids.
After graduating from the college in Paris, Edward →Habich hired him as a special emissary of the Peruvian government in this South American country. As a government engineer, Kluger planned and supervised the construction of iron bridges in the ports Callao and Ancon, as well as a 200 m long iron peer with a drawbridge on its front side, facing port Huacho.
He also supervised the regulation of the Rimac River in Lima and the planning of the irrigation system that united the water of the mountain river Maura on the east slope and transferred it to the west slope of the Cordilleras. It served to irrigate Tacna, the south and farthest area of the countryside. His project anticipated moving the river’s current through a 185km long channel and building a 1400 km long tunnel on the main mountain range of Cordilleras, lying 4300 m above sea level. With the help of the tunnel, the water would reach the Tacna province. In 1875/76 Kluger led an expedition to investigate the area where the project would be carried out. This research has been described in the book Letters from Peru (Listy z Peruwii) and in the Peruvian newspaper Revista de Agricultura (1876/77).
The project was not carried out since Peru lost a part of Tacna in the war between Chile and Peru from 1879 to 1884.
After 1876, Kluger supervised the railway constructions from Ilo to Moquegua and from Arica to Tucane. A year later the Peruvian government authorised him to build a track that would connect Peru and Bolivia. In the spring of the same year he led an expedition to measure the railway line up to 4394 m above sea level. The project, completed in 1878, is still the main connection point between these two countries.
From 1878 to 1880 Kluger was authorised to build a road from Chorrillosa to Miraflore at Callao, and roads in the Condorpico area, irrigation devices from Maura to Uchusuma, an aqueduct for the city of Chorrillos, and to rebuild the city aqueducts of Arica and Tacna, destroyed in the earthquake of 1877.
From 1876 onwards Kluger, full professor and chief of the Chair of Hydraulics, Construction and Hydrologic Engineering, taught at the Technical College in Lima. At that time he published an important essay, entitled Lecture on the Science of Solidity and Building Stability.
Kluger represented Peru at a world exhibition and at the technical congress in Paris. Because of his illness (tuberculosis), he returned to Krakow in 1880. In 1881 he drew an outline of the regulation of the Wisloka River, and in 1882 he worked in a committee for aqueduct construction in Krakow. He also published numerous essays in the newspaper Czasopismo Techniczne in Krakow. In 1877/78 he donated his copious archaeological, anthropological and ethnographic collection from Peru to the Academy of Sciences in Krakow.