Who was Jules Dumont d’Urville? Information French explorer and naval officer about Jules Dumont d’Urville biography, life story, works and explorations.
Source: wikipedia.org
Jules Dumont d’Urville; (1790-1842), French naval officer and explorer. He was born at Condé-sur-Noireau, Calvados, France, on May 23, 1790. He entered the navy as an apprentice in Í807.
While on a hydrographie survey in the Mediterranean Sea in 1819-1820, Dumont d’Ur-ville recognized the significance of the Venus de Milo, a statue that had been discovered on the Greek island of Melos. He was influential in having the statue acquired by the Louvre.
From 1822 to 1825 he served under Louis Duperrey aboard the Coquille on an expedition to the Pacific Ocean and around the world. As commander of the same ship, renamed the Astrolabe, Dumont d’Urville returned to the western Pacific to search for the ill-fated La Pérouse expedition in 1826. He returned to France in 1829 and in 1830 transported France’s King Charles X to exile in England.
Dumont d’Urville in 1837 began a voyage to explore the Antarctic region, assess whaling potential, and search for new islands in the western Pacific. His ships Astrolabe and Zélée sailed through the Straits of Magellan and along the margins of Antarctic ice, discovering Louis Philippe Peninsula and Joinville Island in 1838. He then explored the southwest Pacific before sailing to Tasmania and south to Antarctica. In 1840 he discovered a portion of the Antarctic coast and named it Adélie Coast for his wife. He died in a train wreck near Paris on May 8, 1842.
