From Venus to Antarctica: the Life of Dumont D’Urville

2007

Central V64.F82 D84

Auckland: Exisle Pub

Professor Dunmore’s title of this modern biography on Dumont d’Urville is an apt one. In 1819, while on surveying vessel near the island of Milos, d’Urville became involved in rescuing a marble statue, which is now in the Louvre. The statute is known world-wide as ‘Vénus de Milo’. In a later voyage, between 1837 and 1840, d’Urville explored the polar regions of the Antarctic, visited the Pacific again, and then returned to France via the Torres Strait, La Réunion, and St Helena. On 8 May 1842, while taking time out from marshalling the many reports together, d’Urville and his family took a train ride to Paris. Near Meudon it derailed and the entire family were killed.