DUMONT D'URVILLE, JULES-SEBASTIEN-CESAR, a French navigator and naturalist, was born May 23, 1790. He is known in the scientific world as having made several valuable contributions to the science of botany. One of his earliest contributions to botany was a memoir on the plants which be had himself collected in the Grecian Islands, and which was published at Paris in 1822, with the title Enumeratio Plantarum (Inas in insulin Archipclagi ant Littoribus Ponti Euxini, :Innis 1819 et 1820, collegit atque detexit.' In the Memoirs of the Linnman Society of Paris in 1826,' he published a Flora of Falkland's Island, with the title 'Flores des Malouines: In the sixth volume of the Annales des Sciences Naturelles' he published an essay on the distribution of the ferns over the surface of the earth. These are his principal labours as a botanist, but Dumont D'Urville will be better known to posterity as an able, persevering, and successful navigator. In 1826 he was appointed by the king of France to the command of the frigate Astrolabe,' for the purpose of making a voyage in search of information with regard to the unfortunate La Perouse and his companions. The vessel left Toulon in March 1826, and continued out till 1829. During the first part of his voyage Dumont D'Urville failed of attaining the object of his expedition, but having put in at Hobart Town in Van Diemen's Land, he heard that Captain Dillon bad obtained information with regard to the object of his search at the island of Vanikoro, or Malicolo. He accordingly sailed for that island, and reached it in January 1828. Here he found undoubted evidence of the wreck of the two frigates, on the breakers of this island, which were under the command of La Perouse. This island is one of the group called Solomon's Islands, in 11° 41' S. lat. and 167° 5' E. long. Having ascertained that the lives of many of the sailors had been saved from the wreck, but that they had built another vessel and sailed from the island, he erected a monument to the memory of those who perished, and returned home. Some of the portions of the wrecks of the two vessels were recovered. During this voyage very important surveys of coasts and islands were made ; among them a survey of the north part of New Zealand, Tongataboo, Fidjee Archipelago, Loyalty, Deliverance, New Britain, New Ireland, New Guinea, Fataka, Vanikoro, Hogollu, Guam, and the Moluccas. A
full account of this memorable voyage was published in 1830 and successive years by Dumont D'Urville. This work is a splendid con tribution to science. The five volumes descriptive of the voyage were written by Dumont D'Urville ; one volume, on the Botany of the islands of the South Seas, was written by Lesson and Richard; one volume, on the Entomology, by Boisduval; and four volumes, ou the Zoology of the same districts, by Quoi and Gaimard. The work was accom panied by an atlas of 45 maps, 243 plates of views, portraits of natives, &c., and above 100 plates of objects in natural history. The title of this work is Voyage de la Corvette l'Astrolahe execut6 par ordre du Roi pendant lea amides 1826, 1827, 1828, 1829,' Paris, 8vo, plates, folio.
In 1837 Dumont D'Urville had placed under his command the frigates Astrolabe' and 'Z616,' for the purpose of making a voyage to the South Pole. In a first attempt he reached the latitude 64° S., and explored to some extent what he thought to be a new coast; he was obliged however to retire on account of the icebergs. Having remained for some time at Conception, he made a second attempt, and discovered a coast at 66° 33' S. lat., 138° 21' E. long. He found himself here close to the south magnetic pole, the magnetic needle becoming nearly vertical. The coast thus discovered appeared one mass of ice, but portions of rock here and there projected, from which specimens were obtained by means of a boat's crew. It appears that the same land was discovered the same day by an American vessel in 64° 20' S. lat., 154° 18' E. long. Captain Ross has since reached 78° 11' S. lat., 161° 27' W. long. The land thus discovered by Dumont D'Urville he named after his wife Adclie. On his return to Paris he published an account of this expedition with the official reports of the minister of marine, under the title Expedition an Polo Austral et dans l'Oc6ane des Corvettes de sa Majest6; Paris, 1839.
This brave sailor and excellent man met with his death on the 8th of May 1842, by a railway accident that occurred between Ver sailles and Menden, by which himself, with his wife and son, and nearly fifty fellow passengers, were killed.