Jules Sébastien César Dumont d'Urville ( 1790 - 1842)

Jules Sébastien César Dumont d’Urville (1790-1842) was a French explorer and naval officer.

Dumont d’Urville sailed from Toulon on 22 April 1826, towards the Pacific Ocean in his first voyage in the Astrolabe, for a circumnavigation of the world that was to lasted nearly three years. The expedition returned to Marseille on 25 March 1829. The Astrolabe was originally named Coquille and used for Louis Isidore Duperrey’s circumnavigation of the earth (1822–1825). She was renamed after the navigational instrument, the astrolabe, a precursor to the sextant.

In his second voyage in the Astrolabe and the Zélée he sailed from Toulon on 7 September 1837 with the aim to reach the most southerly point possible at this time in the Weddell Sea; to pass through the Strait of Magellan; to travel up the coast of Chile in order to head for Oceania with the objective of inspecting the new British colonies in Western Australia; to sail to Hobart; and to sail to New Zealand to find opportunities for French whalers and to examine places where a penal colony might be established. After passing through the East Indies, the mission would have to round the Cape of Good Hope and returning on 6 November 1840.