Dumont d'Urville, Jules Sébastien César [key], 1790–1842, French navigator. While on duty (1819–20) in the E Mediterranean, he saw and recognized the importance of the newly discovered Venus of Milo and was influential in having the Louvre secure it. In 1822–25, while serving on the Coquille, he surveyed the Falklands, Tahiti and other Pacific islands, and New Holland (W Australia). In 1826–29 he commanded the Astrolabe in a voyage around the world; searching for the ill-fated La Pérouse expedition, he explored Fiji and many other islands of Oceania, the New Zealand coast, and the Moluccas. With the Astrolabe and the Zelée he made a second circumnavigation in 1837–40, and in 1840 he penetrated the ice pack south of New Zealand and discovered the Adélie Coast region in Antarctica.
See A. Gurney, The Race to the White Continent (2000).
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