Duperrey, Louis-Isidore

(b. Paris, France, 21 [22?] October 1786; d. Paris, 25 August [10 September?] 1865)

navigation, hydrography, terrestrial magnetism.

A sailor in the French navy from 1803 onward, Duperrey rose rapidly through the ranks, was assigned to carry out a hydrographic mission off the coast of Tuscany in 1809, and received his first command in 1814. He was in charge of hydrographic activities on Louis de Freycinet’s expedition around the world in 1817–1820 and produced valuable observations on the earth’s shape and on terrestrial magnetism, together with numerous charts. About one year following his return Duperrey presented to the naval minister a plan for another circumnavigating expedition, and in 1822 he embarked in command of the Coquille. Second in command was Jules-Sébastien-César Dumont d’Urville, and the expedition was joined by two naturalists, René-Primevère Lesson and Prosper Garnot.

Before his return to Marseilles in 1825 (accomplished without the loss of a single man), Duperrey and his company discovered a number of unknown islands, prepared charts of previously little-known areas of the South Pacific (especially in the Caroline Archipelago), studied ocean currents, gathered new information on geomagnetic and meteorological phenomena, and collected an impressive array of geological, botanical, and zoological specimens for the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle. After the return of the expedition Duperrey and his collaborators worked assiduously to prepare the results of the journey for publication. The expedition particularly distinguished itself in producing new knowledge of the behavior of ocean currents in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans (there was a certain fascination with asymmetry in the weather of the Northern and Southern hemispheres) and in its contributions to knowledge of variations in intensity and direction of terrestrial magnetism. Duperrey himself was especially concerned with the determination of the earth’s magnetic equator.

Duperrey was elected to membership in the Academy of Sciences (section for geography and navigation) in 1842, became vice-president in 1849, and served as president in 1850.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. The results of the voyage of the Coquille were published as Voyage autour du monde, exécuté par ordre du Roi, sur la corvette de Sa Majesté, la Coquille, pendant les années 1822, 1823, 1824 et 1825... (7 vols. plus 4 vols. of plates and maps, Paris, 1825–1830). Duperrey himself prepared the Histoire du voyage (1825), Hydrographie et physique (1829), Hydrographie (1829), and Physique (1830); Botanique (2 vols., 1828) was prepared by Dumont d’Urville, J. B. Bory de Saint-Vincent, and Adolphe Brongniart; while Lesson, Garnot, and Félix-Édouard Guérin-Ménevillc collaborated on Zoologie (2 vols., 1826–1830). Duperrey also published separately Mémoire sur les opérations géographiques faites dans la campagne de la corvette de S. M. la Coquille, pendant les années 1822, 1823, 1824 et 1825 (Paris, n.d. [1827]).

Duperrey’s publications of the scientific results of his expeditions also appeared in the form of articles, such as “Résumé des observations de l’inclinaison et de la déclinaison de l’aiguille aimantée faites dans la campagne de la corvette de S. M. la Coquille, pendant les années 1822, 1823, 1824, et 1825,” in Annales de chimie et de physique, 34 (1827), 298–320; “Notice sur la configuration de l’équateur magnétique, conclue des observations faites dans la campagne de la corvette la Coquille,” ibid., 45 (1830), 371–386; “Notice sur la position des pôles magnétiques de la terre,” in Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l’Académie des Sciences, 13 (1841), 1104–1111; and “Réduction des observations de l’inlensité du magnétisme terrestre faites par M. de Freycinet et ses collaborateurs durant le cours du voyage de la corvette l’Uranie,” ibid., 19 (1844), 445–455. Other articles were published in Additions à la connaissance des temps and Annales maritimes et coloniales. Information gathered by Duperrey on terrestrial magnetism is set forth extensively in Antoine César Becquerel, Traité expérimental de l’électricité et du magnétisme, et de leurs rapports avec les phénomènes naturels, vol. VII (Paris, 1840).

II. Secondary Literature. On Duperrey and his work see Dominique F. J. Arago and others, “Rapport fait à l’Académie des Sciences, le lundi 22 août 1825, sur le voyage de découvertes, exécuté dans les années 1822, 1823, 1824 et 1825, sous le commandement de M. Duperrey, lieutenant de vaisseau,” in Additions à la connaissance des temps, année 1828, pp. 240–272; this appears to be the principal source for a long biographical article by P. Levot in Hoefer’s Nouvelle biographie générale, vol. XV (Paris, 1856), cols. 278–286. Duperrey published a Notice sur les travaux de M. L.-I Duperrey, ancien officer supérieur de la marine (Paris, 1842). Contemporary biographical notices appear in Figuier’s L’année scientifique et industrielle (1866), pp. 477–478; and in Edouard Goepp and Henri de Mannoury d’Ectot, La France biographique illustrée: Les marins, 2 vols. (Paris, 1877), II, 227–228. A recent sketch by É. Franceschini is in Dictionnaire de biographie française, fasc. LXVIII (1968), cols. 338–339. Information on Duperrey’s circumnavigating expedition is found in Paul Chack,Croisières merveilleuses (Paris, 1937), pp. 131–147; and in Robert J. Garry, “Geographical Exploration by the French,” in The Pacific Basin: A History of Its Geographical Exploration, Herman R. Friis, ed. (New York, 1967), pp. 201–220.

Kenneth L. Taylor