Jules Sébastien César Dumont d’Urville

Jules Sébastien César Dumont d’Urville (1790-1842), French naval officer and explorer of the South Pacific and Antarctica. He was born on May 23, 1790, in Condé-sur-Noireau. Self-educated, d'Urville went to sea at the age of 17. In 1820, on an expedition to the Greek archipelago, he recognized a then recently unearthed Greek statue, now known as the Venus de Milo, as an ancient masterpiece and secured its acquisition by the French government. In 1822-25, while serving aboard the Coquille, which circumnavigated the globe, he surveyed the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas) and New Zealand. Three years later he was given command of the vessel, renamed the Astrolabe, and was commissioned to find traces of the lost French explorer Jean François La Pérouse.

Between 1826 and 1829 d'Urville traversed the southern Australian coast, charted parts of New Zealand, and visited New Guinea, New Caledonia, and other islands in the western Pacific. At Vanikoro Island, in the Santa Cruz group, north of the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu), he found evidence that La Pérouse and his ship's company had been massacred by the indigenous people. On his return, d'Urville was promoted to the rank of captain. He embarked with the Astrolabe and Zélée in 1837, on an expedition to the South Polar regions. In 1838 he reached Palmer Land, and then Joinville Island off its northern extremity. He refitted in Talcahuano, Chile, made explorations of the New Guinea and Borneo coasts, and in 1840 left from Hobart, Tasmania, for the Antarctic, where he sailed along a coast that he called Adélie Coast. This proved to be part of the continental mass and represents the French claim to the Antarctic continent. D'Urville Sea, off Antarctica's Adélie Coast, and Cape d'Urville, Indonesia, bear the name of the explorer, as does D'Urville Island, off the coast of New Zealand. D'Urville was appointed rear admiral on his return from the Antarctic, and wrote accounts of his voyages. He was killed in a railroad accident near Meudon, France, on May 8, 1842.