Andrés Poey Aguirre

Meteorologist and precursor in Cuba of research in that discipline. He also devoted part of his scientific work to zoology, geography, and ethnology.

He was born in La Habana and died in Paris, France. He was the son of the prominent Cuban naturalist Felipe Poey y Aloy. He traveled with his parents to France in 1826, and completed part of his primary education in Paris, which he continued later at the Colegio San Cristóbal de Carraguao in La Habana.

In the mid-nineteenth century, and in order to conduct his meteorological research, he created at his own expense an observatory on the roof of his house in La Habana, and unsuccessfully attempted to organize a network of stations throughout the Island, which he was unable to achieve due to lack of official support.

He produced statistics on hurricanes, and his catalog "Chronological Table comprising 400 hurricanes and cyclones that have occurred in the West Indies and the North Atlantic from 1493 to 1855" —considered essential in meteorology— was published in 1855 in the Journal of the Geographical Society of London, and five years later in the Spanish Naval Chronicle.

He conducted important studies on the quality and composition of clouds, as well as on the passage of comets and shooting stars. Concerning agricultural meteorology, he was a collaborator with the Smithsonian Institution of Washington and the Department of Agriculture of the United States. He served as director of the Physical-Meteorological Observatory of La Habana from 1856 onwards, and while in Mexico, he created a meteorological observatory there in 1865.

In 1847 he founded the scientific-literary journal El Colibrí, and that same year he wrote his "Methodical Catalog of the birds of the island of Cuba," which would be published in the Memoirs of the Economic Society of Friends of the Country of La Habana. Likewise, in 1849 he would send his articles "On the origin of the wild dog" and "On instinct and intelligence in animals" to the serial publication El Artista.

In the field of geography, he prepared in 1848 an Atlas with 28 lithographed maps, intended for primary schools —the first of its kind printed in Cuba— to support the classes his father offered in that subject. He also wrote the report "Brief historical, hydrographic and topographic overview of the Island of Pinos."

His study "Cuban Antiquities. A brief description of some relics found on the Island of Cuba," in which he included the analysis and illustration of the "Idol of Bayamo" —an important Indo-Cuban archaeological piece discovered by the Spanish Miguel Rodríguez Ferrer in 1847— was published in volume III of the works of the American Ethnological Society, and earned him admission to it. He was a member of other scientific associations, such as the Royal Academy of Medical, Physical and Natural Sciences of La Habana, the Ethnological Society of London and the Royal Academy of Sciences of Paris.

Active Bibliography
"Investigations concerning atmospheric polarization observed under the tropical sky of Havana, April 17, 1865," Annals of the Royal Academy of Medical, Physical and Natural Sciences of La Habana, 2: 103-107, La Habana, 1865.

Bibliographie Cyclonique. Catalogue Comprising 1,008 works and writings that have appeared until this day on hurricanes and cyclonic storms, Administrative Press of P. Dumont, Paris, 1866.

"Report of the great earthquake that occurred on August 13 and 16, 1868 in the Republics of Peru, Chile and Ecuador, related to other earthquakes from Acapulco, San Francisco... that occurred until September 30," Annals of the Royal Academy of Medical, Physical and Natural Sciences of La Habana, 5: 245-252 and 365-374, La Habana, 1868-1869.

"Curves of those infected and deceased from yellow fever at the Military Hospital of Havana: Note presented to the Academy of Medicine and Sciences of Havana, April 27, 1862," Annals of the Academy of Medical, Physical and Natural Sciences of La Habana, 49: 105-109, La Habana, 1912.

Passive Bibliography

González López, Rosa María: "Andrés Poey Aguirre," in Rolando García Blanco and others: One hundred figures of science in Cuba, pp. 320-322, Editorial Científico-Técnica, La Habana, 2002.

Ortiz, Héctor: "Andrés Poey Aguirre, precursor of Scientific Meteorology in Cuba," Lectures and Studies of History and Organization of Science, 13, CEHOC, La Habana, 1979.

Source: En Caribe.org