Voyage de la corvette l'Astrolabe exécuté par ordre du Roi, pendant les années 1826-1827-1828-1829, sous le commandement de J. Dumont d'Urville

Voyage of the Astrolabe, 1826-1829

Jules Dumont D’Urville (1790-1842) led this information-gathering expedition to the Pacific Islands aboard Astrolabe and hoped to build on the scientific knowledge gained from Louis Isidore Duperrey’s expedition of 1822-25. D’Urville sailed from Toulon in France in April, 1826 with three naturalists – Lesson, Quoy and Gaimard. Astrolabe, with D’Urville and his crew, sailed off the coast of the South Island of New Zealand in January 1827 and collected specimens from Astrolabe Bay in Nelson. Some specimens from the expedition are still in collections housed in the Natural History Museum in Paris.