DUMONT D'URVILLE, JULES SEBASTIEN CESAR French navigator, was born at Conde-sur-Noireau, in Normandy. He went to sea in 1807 as a novice on board the "Aquilon." During the next 12 years he gradually rose in the service, and added a knowledge of botany, entomology, English, German, Spanish, Italian and even Hebrew and Greek to the professional branches of his studies. In 1820, while engaged in a hydrographic survey of the Mediterranean, he was fortunate enough to recognize the Venus of Milo (Melos) in a Greek statue recently unearthed, and to secure its preservation by the report he presented to the French ambassador at Constantinople. In 1822 he served in the circumnavigating expedition of the "Coquille" under the command of his friend Duperrey; and on its return in 1825 he was promoted capitaine de f regate, and given the com mand of a similar enterprise, with the purpose of discovering traces of the lost explorer, La Perouse, in which he was successful. The "Astrolabe," as he renamed the "Coquille," left Toulon on April 25, 1826, and returned to Marseille on March 25, 1829, hav ing traversed the south Atlantic, coasted the Australian continent from King George's sound to Port Jackson, charted various parts of New Zealand, and visited the Fiji islands, the ,Loyalty islands, New Caledonia, New Guinea, Amboyna, Van Diemen's Land, the Caroline islands, Celebes and Mauritius. Promotion to the rank of capitaine de vaisseau was bestowed on the commander in Aug. 1829; and in August of the following year he conveyed the exiled king Charles X. to England. On Sept. 7, 1837, he set sail from Toulon with the "Astrolabe" and its convoy "La Zelee" on a voyage of exploration in the South Polar regions. On Jan 15, 1838, they sighted the Antarctic ice, and soon after their progress southward was blocked by a continuous bank, which they vainly coasted for 3oom. to the east. Returning westward they visited the South Orkney islands and part of the New Shetlands, and dis covered Joinville island and Louis Philippe Land, but were com pelled by scurvy to seek succour at Talcahuano in Chile. Thence they proceeded across the Pacific and through the Asiatic archi pelago, visiting among others the Fiji and the Pelew islands, coast ing New Guinea, and circumnavigating Borneo. In 184o, leaving their sick at Hobart Town, Tasmania, they returned to the Ant arctic region, and subsequently discovered Adelie Land, which D'Urville named after his wife, in E. Nov. 6 found them at Toulon. On May 8, 1842, D'Urville was killed, with his wife and son, in a railway accident near Meudon. An island (also called Kairu) off the north coast of New Guinea and a cape on the same coast bear his name.
His principal works are:-Enumeratio plantarum quas in insulis Archipelagi aut littoribus Ponti Euxini, etc. (1822) ; Voyage de la corvette "l'Astrolabe," 1826-1829 (1830-35), and Voyage au pole sud et dans l'Oceanie, 1837-1840 (1842-54) , in each of which his scientific colleagues had a share ; Voyages autour du monde; résumé general des voyages de Magellan, etc. (1833 and 1844).