European and American voyages of scientific exploration

The era of European and American voyages of scientific exploration followed the Age of Discovery

Age of Discovery

The Age of Discovery, also known as the Age of Exploration and the Great Navigations , was a period in history starting in the early 15th century and continuing into the early 17th century during which Europeans engaged in intensive exploration of the world, establishing direct contacts with...

and were inspired by a new confidence in science and reason that arose in the Age of Enlightenment

Age of Enlightenment

The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...

. Maritime expeditions in the Age of Discovery were a means of expanding colonial empires, establishing new trade routes and extending diplomatic and trade relations to new territories, but with the Enlightenment

Age of Enlightenment

scientific curiosity became a new motive for exploration to add to the commercial and political ambitions of the past.

Maritime exploration in the Age of Discovery

From the early 15th century to the early 17th century the Age of Discovery had, through Spanish and Portuguese seafarers, opened up southern Africa, the Americas (New World), Asia and Oceania to European eyes: Bartholomew Diaz had sailed around the Cape of southern Africa in search of a trade route to India; Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents in the...

, on four journeys across the Atlantic, had prepared the way for European colonisation of the New World; Ferdinand Magellan

Ferdinand Magellan

Ferdinand Magellan was a Portuguese explorer. He was born in Sabrosa, in northern Portugal, and served King Charles I of Spain in search of a westward route to the "Spice Islands" ....

had commanded the first expedition to sail across the Atlantic

Atlantic Ocean

The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...

and Pacific

Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...

oceans to complete the first circumnavigation

Circumnavigation

Circumnavigation – literally, "navigation of a circumference" – refers to travelling all the way around an island, a continent, or the entire planet Earth.- Global circumnavigation :...

of the Earth. Over this period colonial power shifted from the Portuguese and Spanish to the Dutch and then the British and French. The new era of scientific exploration began in the late 17th century as scientists, and in particular natural historians, established scientific societies that published their researches in specialist journals. The British Royal Society

Royal Society

The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...

was founded in 1660 and encouraged the scientific rigour of empiricism with its principles of careful observation and deduction. Activities of early members of the Royal Society served as models for later maritime exploration. Hans Sloane

Hans Sloane

Sir Hans Sloane, 1st Baronet, PRS was an Ulster-Scot physician and collector, notable for bequeathing his collection to the British nation which became the foundation of the British Museum...

(1650–1753) was elected a member in 1685 and travelled to Jamaica from 1687 to 1689 as physician to the Duke of Albemarle

Christopher Monck, 2nd Duke of Albemarle

Christopher Monck, 2nd Duke of Albemarle, KG, PC was an English statesman and failed soldier.He was the son of George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle....

(1653–1688) who had been appointed Governor of Jamaica. In Jamaica Sloane collected numerous specimens which were carefully described and illustrated in a published account of his stay. Sloane bequeathed his vast collection of natural history ‘curiosities’ and library of over 50,000 bound volumes to the nation, prompting the establishment in 1753 of the British Museum

British Museum

The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...

. His travels also made him an extremely wealthy man as he patented a recipe that combined milk with the fruit of Theobroma cacao (cocoa) he saw growing in Jamaica, to produce milk chocolate. Books of distinguished social figures like the intellectual commentatorJean Jacques Rousseau, Director of the Paris Museum of Natural History Comte de Buffon

Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon

Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon was a French naturalist, mathematician, cosmologist, and encyclopedic author.His works influenced the next two generations of naturalists, including Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and Georges Cuvier...

, and scientist-travellers like Joseph Banks

Joseph Banks

Sir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet, GCB, PRS was an English naturalist, botanist and patron of the natural sciences. He took part in Captain James Cook's first great voyage . Banks is credited with the introduction to the Western world of eucalyptus, acacia, mimosa and the genus named after him,...

, and Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin

Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...

, along with the romantic and often fanciful travelogues of intrepid explorers, increased the desire of European governments and the general public for accurate information about the newly-discovered distant lands.

Maritime exploration in the Age of Enlightenment

By the 18th century maritime exploration had become safer and more efficient with technical innovations that vastly improved navigation and cartography: improvements were made to the theodolite

Theodolite

A theodolite is a precision instrument for measuring angles in the horizontal and vertical planes. Theodolites are mainly used for surveying applications, and have been adapted for specialized purposes in fields like metrology and rocket launch technology...

, octant

Octant

An octant is one of eight divisions.-Octant in the plane :Traditionally wind direction is given as one of the 8 octants because that is more accurate than merely giving one of the 4 quadrants, and the wind vane typically does not have enough accuracy to bother with more precise indication.-Octant...

, precision chronometers (clock

Clock

A clock is an instrument used to indicate, keep, and co-ordinate time. The word clock is derived ultimately from the Celtic words clagan and clocca meaning "bell". A silent instrument missing such a mechanism has traditionally been known as a timepiece...

s), as well as the compass

Compass

A compass is a navigational instrument that shows directions in a frame of reference that is stationary relative to the surface of the earth. The frame of reference defines the four cardinal directions – north, south, east, and west. Intermediate directions are also defined...

, telescope

Telescope

A telescope is an instrument that aids in the observation of remote objects by collecting electromagnetic radiation . The first known practical telescopes were invented in the Netherlands at the beginning of the 1600s , using glass lenses...

, and general shipbuilding

Shipbuilding

Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and floating vessels. It normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation that traces its roots to before recorded history.Shipbuilding and ship repairs, both...

techniques.
From the mid-18th century through the 19th century scientific missions mapped the newly-discovered regions, brought back to Europe the newly discovered fauna

Fauna

Fauna or faunæ is all of the animal life of any particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is flora.Zoologists and paleontologists use fauna to refer to a typical collection of animals found in a specific time or place, e.g. the "Sonoran Desert fauna" or the "Burgess shale fauna"...

and flora

Flora

Flora is the plant life occurring in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring or indigenous—native plant life. The corresponding term for animals is fauna.-Etymology:...

, made hydrological, astronomical and meteorological observations and improved the methods of navigation. This stimulated great advances in the scientific disciplines of natural history

Natural history

Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...

, botany

Botany

Botany, plant science, or plant biology is a branch of biology that involves the scientific study of plant life. Traditionally, botany also included the study of fungi, algae and viruses...

, zoology

Zoology

Zoology |zoölogy]]), is the branch of biology that relates to the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct...

, ichthyology

Ichthyology

Ichthyology is the branch of zoology devoted to the study of fish. This includes skeletal fish , cartilaginous fish , and jawless fish...

, conchology

Conchology

Conchology is the scientific or amateur study of mollusc shells. Conchology is one aspect of malacology, the study of molluscs, however malacology studies molluscs as whole organisms, not just their shells. Conchology pre-dated malacology as a field of study. It includes the study of land and...

, taxonomy

Taxonomy

Taxonomy is the science of identifying and naming species, and arranging them into a classification. The field of taxonomy, sometimes referred to as "biological taxonomy", revolves around the description and use of taxonomic units, known as taxa...

, medicine

Medicine

Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....

, geography

Geography

Geography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...

, geology

Geology

Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...

, mineralogy

Mineralogy

Mineralogy is the study of chemistry, crystal structure, and physical properties of minerals. Specific studies within mineralogy include the processes of mineral origin and formation, classification of minerals, their geographical distribution, as well as their utilization.-History:Early writing...

, hydrology

Hydrology

Hydrology is the study of the movement, distribution, and quality of water on Earth and other planets, including the hydrologic cycle, water resources and environmental watershed sustainability...

, oceanography

Oceanography

Oceanography , also called oceanology or marine science, is the branch of Earth science that studies the ocean...

, physics

Physics

Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...

, meteorology

Meteorology

Meteorology is the interdisciplinary scientific study of the atmosphere. Studies in the field stretch back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did not occur until the 18th century. The 19th century saw breakthroughs occur after observing networks developed across several countries...

etc. — all contributing to the sense of "improvement" and "progress" that characterized the Enlightenment. Artists were used to record landscapes and indigenous peoples, while natural history illustrators captured the appearance of organisms before they deteriorated after collection. Some of the worlds finest natural history illustrations were produced at this time and the illustrators changed from informed amateurs to fully trained professionals acutely aware of the need for scientific accuracy.

By the middle of the 19th century all of the world's major land masses, and most of the minor ones, had been discovered by Europeans and their coastlines charted. This marked the end of this phase of science as the "Challenger" expedition of 1872–1876 began exploring the deep seas beyond a depth of 20 or 30 meters. In spite of the growing community of scientists, for nearly 200 years science had been the preserve of wealthy amateurs, educated middle classes and clerics. At the start of the 18th century most voyages were privately organized and financed but by the second half of the century these scientific expeditions, like Cook’s three Pacific voyages under the auspices of the British Admiralty, were instigated by government. In the late 19th century, when this phase of science was drawing to a close, it became possible to earn a living as a professional scientist although photography was beginning to replace the illustrators. The exploratory sailing ship had gradually evolved into the modern research vessel

Research vessel

A research vessel is a ship designed and equipped to carry out research at sea. Research vessels carry out a number of roles. Some of these roles can be combined into a single vessel, others require a dedicated vessel...

s. From now on maritime research in new European colonies in America, Africa, Australia, India and elsewhere, would be carried out by researchers within the occupied territories themselves.

Chronology of voyages

This compendium of voyages of scientific exploration provides an overview of maritime scientific research carried out at the time of the Enlightenment

Age of Enlightenment

in Europe.
Published journals and accounts are included with the individual voyages.

1764–1766 :

Considered the first scientific voyage undertaken by the British Navy its primary purpose was the discovery of new lands in the South of Atlantic Ocean

Atlantic Ocean

The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...

. It was during this trip that are discovered several islands of the Tuamotu archipelago. HMS Dolphin was a 24-gun post ship launched in 1751 and used as a survey ship from 1764, making two circumnavigation

Circumnavigation

Circumnavigation – literally, "navigation of a circumference" – refers to travelling all the way around an island, a continent, or the entire planet Earth.- Global circumnavigation :...

s under the command of John Byron

John Byron

Vice Admiral The Hon. John Byron, RN was a Royal Navy officer. He was known as Foul-weather Jack because of his frequent bad luck with weather.-Early career:...

and Samuel Wallis

Samuel Wallis

Samuel Wallis was a Cornish navigator who circumnavigated the world.Wallis was born near Camelford, Cornwall. In 1766 he was given the command of HMS Dolphin to circumnavigate the world, accompanied by the Swallow under the command of Philip Carteret...

. She was broken up in 1777.

Captain: John Byron
John Byron
Vice Admiral The Hon. John Byron, RN was a Royal Navy officer. He was known as Foul-weather Jack because of his frequent bad luck with weather.-Early career:...

(1723–1786).
Publications: J. Byron, A Voyage round the world. (London, 1767), translated into French the same year under the title Journey around the world in 1764 and 1765, on the English warship "The Dolphin", commissioned by Vice-Admiral Byron ... (Paris).

1766–1768 : and

A world circumnavigation by the English navigator Samuel Wallis

Samuel Wallis

, on board the Dolphin, accompanied by Philip Carteret

Philip Carteret

Philip Carteret, Seigneur of Trinity was a British naval officer and explorer who participated in two of the Royal Navy's circumnavigation expeditions in 1764-66 and 1766-69.-Biography:...

on the consort ship Swallow. Parties of Plymouth in August 1766, the two ships pass through the Strait of Magellan

Strait of Magellan

The Strait of Magellan comprises a navigable sea route immediately south of mainland South America and north of Tierra del Fuego...

in December 1766, but conflicts between the two captains lead the separation of the ships. The "Dolphin" reached Tahiti

Tahiti

Tahiti is the largest island in the Windward group of French Polynesia, located in the archipelago of the Society Islands in the southern Pacific Ocean. It is the economic, cultural and political centre of French Polynesia. The island was formed from volcanic activity and is high and mountainous...

in June 1767. Samuel Wallis studied the customs of the Polynesians, reaching the Dutch East Indies

Dutch East Indies

The Dutch East Indies was a Dutch colony that became modern Indonesia following World War II. It was formed from the nationalised colonies of the Dutch East India Company, which came under the administration of the Netherlands government in 1800....

at Batavia

Jakarta

Jakarta is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Officially known as the Special Capital Territory of Jakarta, it is located on the northwest coast of Java, has an area of , and a population of 9,580,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political centre...

, returning to London in May 1768. Meanwhile, Philip Carteret on "swallow" explored and studied the Solomon Islands

Solomon Islands

Solomon Islands is a sovereign state in Oceania, east of Papua New Guinea, consisting of nearly one thousand islands. It covers a land mass of . The capital, Honiara, is located on the island of Guadalcanal...

, New Ireland (island)

New Ireland (island)

New Ireland is a large island in Papua New Guinea, approximately 7,404 km² in area. It is the largest island of the New Ireland Province, lying northeast of the island of New Britain. Both islands are part of the Bismarck Archipelago, named after Otto von Bismarck, and they are separated by...

(now part of the Papua New Guinea) and the islands of the Indonesian archipelago (Sulawesi

Sulawesi

Sulawesi is one of the four larger Sunda Islands of Indonesia and is situated between Borneo and the Maluku Islands. In Indonesia, only Sumatra, Borneo, and Papua are larger in territory, and only Java and Sumatra have larger Indonesian populations.- Etymology :The Portuguese were the first to...

among others). The expedition also stopped in Batavia from June to September 1768 and returned to London in March 1769.

Captains: Samuel Wallis
Samuel Wallis
Samuel Wallis was a Cornish navigator who circumnavigated the world.Wallis was born near Camelford, Cornwall. In 1766 he was given the command of HMS Dolphin to circumnavigate the world, accompanied by the Swallow under the command of Philip Carteret...

(1728–1795) (leader of the expedition), Philip Carteret
Philip Carteret
Philip Carteret, Seigneur of Trinity was a British naval officer and explorer who participated in two of the Royal Navy's circumnavigation expeditions in 1764-66 and 1766-69.-Biography:...

(1733–1796) (Commander "Swallow" which was separated from the "Dolphin" and returned to its point of departure a year later).
Second Lieutenant: Tobias Furneaux
Tobias Furneaux
Captain Tobias Furneaux was an English navigator and Royal Navy officer, who accompanied James Cook on his second voyage of exploration. He was the first man to circumnavigate the world in both directions....

(1735–1781).

1766 : HMS Niger

This British ship explored Newfoundland and Labrador

Labrador

Labrador is the distinct, northerly region of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It comprises the mainland portion of the province, separated from the island of Newfoundland by the Strait of Belle Isle...

with Constantine Phipps aboard and Thomas Adams

Thomas Adams

Thomas Adams may refer to:*Sir Thomas Adams, 1st Baronet , Lord Mayor of London*Thomas Adams , pioneer of urban planning*Thomas Adams , American professional basketball player...

(Captain?), and with Joseph Banks

Joseph Banks

also aboard. HMS Niger was a 33-gun fifth-rate

Fifth-rate

In Britain's Royal Navy during the classic age of fighting sail, a fifth rate was the penultimate class of warships in a hierarchal system of six "ratings" based on size and firepower.-Rating:...

launched in 1759, converted to a prison ship

Prison ship

A prison ship, historically sometimes called a prison hulk, is a vessel used as a prison, often to hold convicts awaiting transportation to penal colonies. This practice was popular with the British government in the 18th and 19th centuries....

in 1810 and renamed Negro in 1813. She was sold in 1814.

Captain: Thomas Adams (?–1770)
Also aboard: Joseph Banks
Joseph Banks
Sir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet, GCB, PRS was an English naturalist, botanist and patron of the natural sciences. He took part in Captain James Cook's first great voyage . Banks is credited with the introduction to the Western world of eucalyptus, acacia, mimosa and the genus named after him,...

(1743–1820) and Constantine Phipps.

1766–1769 : La Boudeuse and L'Étoile
French fluyt Étoile (1767)
The Étoile was a fluyt famous for being one of Louis Antoine de Bougainville's ships in his circumnavigation between 1766 and 1769, along with La Boudeuse. She was commanded by Francois Chenard de la Giraudais, and was the storeship of the expedition.She carried naturalist and physician Philibert...

Ordered by Louis XV, it is the first trip around the world initiated by the French. The discovery and description of Tahiti

Tahiti

for Louis Antoine de Bougainville

Louis Antoine de Bougainville

Louis-Antoine, Comte de Bougainville was a French admiral and explorer. A contemporary of James Cook, he took part in the French and Indian War and the unsuccessful French attempt to defend Canada from Britain...

in his trip will have a very significant impact on the philosophers of the Enlightenment

Age of Enlightenment

including Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of 18th-century Romanticism. His political philosophy influenced the French Revolution as well as the overall development of modern political, sociological and educational thought.His novel Émile: or, On Education is a treatise...

(1712–1778). The expedition was organised by Louis Antoine de Bougainville

Louis Antoine de Bougainville

and received the support of such prominent figures of the time as Charles de Brosses

Charles de Brosses

Charles de Brosses, comte de Tournay, baron de Montfalcon, seigneur de Vezins et de Prevessin was a French writer of the 18th century.-Life:...

(1709–1777), Comte de Buffon

Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon

(1707–1788), Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis (1698–1759) and Jérôme Lalande

Jérôme Lalande

Joseph Jérôme Lefrançois de Lalande was a French astronomer and writer.-Biography:Lalande was born at Bourg-en-Bresse...

(1732–1807).

The purpose of the expedition is to discover new territories available for settlement, to open a new route to reach China, to found new outlets for the French company of the East Indies and, finally, discover acclimatable spices for the Ile de France

Mauritius

Mauritius , officially the Republic of Mauritius is an island nation off the southeast coast of the African continent in the southwest Indian Ocean, about east of Madagascar...

Captains: Louis Antoine de Bougainville
Louis Antoine de Bougainville
Louis-Antoine, Comte de Bougainville was a French admiral and explorer. A contemporary of James Cook, he took part in the French and Indian War and the unsuccessful French attempt to defend Canada from Britain...

(1729–1811) Chief of expedition, Nicolas Pierre Duclos-Guyot (Captain of La Boudeuse), François Chenard de la Giraudais (1727–1775) (Captain of L'Étoile)
Naturalist: Philibert Commerçon
Philibert Commerçon
Dr. Philibert Commerçon was a French naturalist, best known for accompanying Louis Antoine de Bougainville on his voyage of circumnavigation in 1766–1769.- Background :...

(1727–1773)
Astronomer: Pierre-Antoine Véron
Pierre-Antoine Véron
Pierre-Antoine Véron was a French expert astronomer and mathematician. He was was a disciple of astronomer and writer Jérôme Lalande at the Collège Royal. Véron is famous for having made a historical observation of the size of the Pacific Ocean...

(1736–1770)
Cartographer: Charles Routier de Romainville (1742–1792?)
Publication: Louis Antoine de Bougainville
Louis Antoine de Bougainville
Louis-Antoine, Comte de Bougainville was a French admiral and explorer. A contemporary of James Cook, he took part in the French and Indian War and the unsuccessful French attempt to defend Canada from Britain...

, Journey Around the World by the Commander of the La Boudeuse and L'Étoile, in 1766, 1767, 1768 and 1769" (Paris, 1771)

1768–1771 : HMS Endeavour
HMS Endeavour
HMS Endeavour may refer to one of the following ships:In the Royal Navy:, a 36-gun ship purchased in 1652 and sold in 1656, a 4-gun bomb vessel purchased in 1694 and sold in 1696, a fire ship purchased in 1694 and sold in 1696, a storeship hoy purchased in 1694 and sold in 1705, a storeship...

An expedition to observe the transit of Venus

Transit of Venus

A transit of Venus across the Sun takes place when the planet Venus passes directly between the Sun and Earth, becoming visible against the solar disk. During a transit, Venus can be seen from Earth as a small black disk moving across the face of the Sun...

across the Sun

Sun

The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...

(in 1769) that included the discovery of new Islands, Tuamotu and Society Islands

Society Islands

The Society Islands are a group of islands in the South Pacific Ocean. They are politically part of French Polynesia. The archipelago is generally believed to have been named by Captain James Cook in honor of the Royal Society, the sponsor of the first British scientific survey of the islands;...

, the first circumnavigation of New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

and charting of the East coast of the New Holland

New Holland (Australia)

New Holland is a historic name for the island continent of Australia. The name was first applied to Australia in 1644 by the Dutch seafarer Abel Tasman as Nova Hollandia, naming it after the Dutch province of Holland, and remained in use for 180 years....

Captain: James Cook
James Cook
Captain James Cook, FRS, RN was a British explorer, navigator and cartographer who ultimately rose to the rank of captain in the Royal Navy...

(1728–1779)
Naturalists: Sir Joseph Banks
Joseph Banks
Sir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet, GCB, PRS was an English naturalist, botanist and patron of the natural sciences. He took part in Captain James Cook's first great voyage . Banks is credited with the introduction to the Western world of eucalyptus, acacia, mimosa and the genus named after him,...

(1743–1820) and Daniel Solander
Daniel Solander
Daniel Carlsson Solander or Daniel Charles Solander was a Swedish naturalist and an apostle of Carl Linnaeus. Solander was the first university educated scientist to set foot on Australian soil.-Biography:...

(1733–1782)
Astronomer: Charles Green
Charles Green (astronomer)
Charles Green was a British astronomer, noted for his assignment by the Royal Society in 1768 to the expedition sent to the Pacific Ocean in order to observe the transit of Venus and the transit of Mercury, aboard James Cook's Endeavour.A farmer's son, he became assistant to the Astronomer Royal...

(1735–1771)
Artist: Sydney Parkinson
Sydney Parkinson
Sydney Parkinson was a Scottish Quaker, botanical illustrator and natural history artist.Parkinson was employed by Joseph Banks to travel with him on James Cook's first voyage to the Pacific in 1768. Parkinson made nearly a thousand drawings of plants and animals collected by Banks and Daniel...

(1745–1771)
Publications: "A Journal of a voyage round the world [printed], in His Majesty's ship Endeavour, in the years 1768, 1769, 1770, and 1771… to which is added, a Concise vocabulary of the language of Otahitee" (London, 1771). The identity of the authors of this report remains controversial because different authors attribute it to Cook, to Banks, Solander as well as various officers having taken share the voyage. It is translated into French under the title of "Journal of a voyage around the world, 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771; containing the various events of the voyage; with the relationship of the lands newly discovered in the méridional… hemisphere " (Paris, 1772).
John Hawkesworth (c. 1715–1773) is commissioned by the Admiralty to make a synthesis of different shipments under the title "An Account of the Voyages undertaken… for making discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere and performed by Commodore Byrone John Byron
John Byron
Vice Admiral The Hon. John Byron, RN was a Royal Navy officer. He was known as Foul-weather Jack because of his frequent bad luck with weather.-Early career:...

, Captain Hallis, Captain Carteret and Captain Cook (from 1702 to 1771) drawn up from the Journals…" (London, three volumes, 1773).

As well as various officers having taken share the voyage. It is translated into French under the title of "Journal of a voyage around the world, 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771; containing the various events of the voyage; with the relationship of the lands newly discovered in the méridional… hemisphere " (Paris, 1772).

1771–1772 : Isle de France and Le Nécessaire

Expedition to harvest spices for production on Mauritius

Mauritius

Mauritius , officially the Republic of Mauritius is an island nation off the southeast coast of the African continent in the southwest Indian Ocean, about east of Madagascar...

, to prevent the monopoly of their trade by the Dutch.

Captains: Chevalier de Coëtivi (Isle of France) and Mr. Cordé (Le Nécessaire)
Naturalist: Pierre Sonnerat
Pierre Sonnerat
Pierre Sonnerat was a French naturalist and explorer.Sonnerat was the nephew of the botanist Pierre Poivre. He made several voyages to southeast Asia, visiting the Philippines and Moluccas between 1769 and 1772, and India and China from 1774 to 1781. He was the first person to give a scientific...

(1748–1814)
Publication: P. Sonnerat, Trip to New Guinea, which is the description of places, the physical and moral observations, and details about the naturelle… history (Paris, 1776)

1772 : HMS Sir Lawrence

Expedition exploring Iceland

Iceland

Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...

and the islands along the West coast of Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

Captain: John Gore
John Gore (Royal Navy officer)
Admiral Sir John Gore, KCB was a British naval commander of the 18th and 19th centuries...

(1772–1836)
Aboard: Joseph Banks
Joseph Banks
Sir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet, GCB, PRS was an English naturalist, botanist and patron of the natural sciences. He took part in Captain James Cook's first great voyage . Banks is credited with the introduction to the Western world of eucalyptus, acacia, mimosa and the genus named after him,...

(1743–1820)
Aboard: Daniel Solander
Daniel Solander
Daniel Carlsson Solander or Daniel Charles Solander was a Swedish naturalist and an apostle of Carl Linnaeus. Solander was the first university educated scientist to set foot on Australian soil.-Biography:...

(1733–1782)

1772–1775 : HMS Resolution and HMS Adventure
HMS Adventure
Twelve ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Adventure. A thirteenth was planned but never completed: was a 26-gun galley launched in 1594 and broken up 1645. was a 32-gun ship launched in 1646, rebuilt in 1691 and captured by the French in 1709. was a 40-gun fifth rate launched in 1709 and...

Cook's second voyage around the world. He again visited New Zealand, sailed near the Antarctic

Antarctic

The Antarctic is the region around the Earth's South Pole, opposite the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antarctic comprises the continent of Antarctica and the ice shelves, waters and island territories in the Southern Ocean situated south of the Antarctic Convergence...

and discovered many islands in the Pacific. Swedish Sparrman embarked during a stopover at Cap

Cap

A cap is a form of headgear. Caps have crowns that fit very close to the head and have no brim or only a visor. They are typically designed for warmth and, when including a visor, blocking sunlight from the eyes...

Captains: James Cook
James Cook
Captain James Cook, FRS, RN was a British explorer, navigator and cartographer who ultimately rose to the rank of captain in the Royal Navy...

(1728–1779) (Resolution) expedition leader, Charles Clerke
Charles Clerke
Captain Charles Clerke RN was an officer in the Royal Navy who sailed on four voyages of exploration.Clerke started studying at the Royal Naval Academy in Portsmouth when he was 13. During the Seven Years' War he served aboard HMS Dorsetshire and HMS Bellona...

and Tobias Furneaux
Tobias Furneaux
Captain Tobias Furneaux was an English navigator and Royal Navy officer, who accompanied James Cook on his second voyage of exploration. He was the first man to circumnavigate the world in both directions....

(1735–1781) (Adventure)
Surgeon-naturalist: William Anderson
William Anderson (naturalist)
William Anderson was a Scottish naturalist, one of seven children of schoolmaster Robert Anderson and Jean...

(1750–1788)
Naturalists: Johann Reinhold Forster
Johann Reinhold Forster
Johann Reinhold Forster was a German Lutheran pastor and naturalist of partial Scottish descent who made contributions to the early ornithology of Europe and North America...

(1729–1798), Georg Forster
Georg Forster
Johann Georg Adam Forster was a German naturalist, ethnologist, travel writer, journalist, and revolutionary. At an early age, he accompanied his father on several scientific expeditions, including James Cook's second voyage to the Pacific...

(1754–1794) and Anders Sparrman
Anders Sparrman
Anders Erikson Sparrman was a Swedish naturalist, abolitionist and an apostle of Carl Linnaeus....

(1748–1820)
Astronomer: William Wales
William Wales (astronomer)
William Wales was a British mathematician and astronomer.-Early life:Wales was born around 1734 to John and Sarah Wales and was baptized in Warmfield that year...

(c. 1734–1798)
Aboard as crew member George Vancouver
George Vancouver
Captain George Vancouver RN was an English officer of the British Royal Navy, best known for his 1791-95 expedition, which explored and charted North America's northwestern Pacific Coast regions, including the coasts of contemporary Alaska, British Columbia, Washington and Oregon...

to become a famous Explorer
Publications: Cook's journals; also the two Forsters released an account of this journey

1771–1772 : La Fortune and Le Gros-Ventre

Exploration of the southern Indian Ocean

Indian Ocean

The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian Subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula ; on the west by eastern Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and...

and the shipping routes to India.

Captains: Yves-Joseph de Kerguelen-Trémarec
Yves-Joseph de Kerguelen-Trémarec
Yves-Joseph de Kerguelen-Trémarec was a Breton explorer and French naval officer.- Early life:He was born in Landudal, Finistère. During the Seven Years' War, Kerguelen-Trémarec was a privateer, but without much success....

(1734–1797), Louis Aleno de St Aloüarn
Louis Aleno de St Aloüarn
Louis Francois Marie Aleno de Saint Aloüarn was a notable French naval officer and explorer.St Aloüarn was the first European to make a formal claim of sovereignty — on behalf of France — over the west coast of Australia, which was known at the time as "New Holland"...

(1738–1772)

1773–1774 : Le Roland and L'Oiseau

Exploration of the southern Indian Ocean

Indian Ocean

Captain: Yves-Joseph de Kerguelen-Trémarec
Yves-Joseph de Kerguelen-Trémarec
Yves-Joseph de Kerguelen-Trémarec was a Breton explorer and French naval officer.- Early life:He was born in Landudal, Finistère. During the Seven Years' War, Kerguelen-Trémarec was a privateer, but without much success....

(1734–1797)
Naturalist: Jean Guillaume Bruguière
Jean Guillaume Bruguière
Jean Guillaume Bruguière was a French physician, zoologist and diplomat.Bruguière was born in Montpellier.He was a doctor, connected to the University of Montpellier. His was interested in invertebrates, mostly snails ....

(1749 or 1750–1798)
Astronomer: Joseph Lepaute Dagelet

1773–1774: HMS Racehorse
HMS Racehorse
Ten ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Racehorse:HMS Racehorse was an 8-gun privateer captured from the French in 1757. She was on Arctic discovery in 1773. Captured by the American Andrea Doria in 1776 and destroyed by the Royal Navy in 1777 at Delaware Bay.HMS Racehorse was a...

and HMS Carcass
HMS Carcass (1759)
HMS Carcass was an of the Royal Navy, later refitted as a survey vessel. A young Horatio Nelson served aboard her as a midshipman on an expedition to the Arctic.-Design and construction:The Infernal class were designed by Thomas Slade...

A British expedition to explore the Arctic Sea. The two ships reached Svalbard

Svalbard

Svalbard is an archipelago in the Arctic, constituting the northernmost part of Norway. It is located north of mainland Europe, midway between mainland Norway and the North Pole. The group of islands range from 74° to 81° north latitude , and from 10° to 35° east longitude. Spitsbergen is the...

before turning back because of the ice. Horatio Nelson was involved with the trip.

Captain: Constantine John Phipps (1744–1792)
Surgeon-naturalist: Irving
Astronomer: Israel Lyons
Israel Lyons
Israel Lyons the younger mathematician and botanist, was born at Cambridge, the son of Israel Lyons the elder . He was regarded as a prodigy, especially in mathematics, and Robert Smith, master of Trinity College, took him under his wing and paid for his attendance...

(1739–1775)
Publication: C.J. Phipps (1774), A Voyage towards the north pole undertaken ....

1776–1780: HMS Resolution
HMS Resolution
Several ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Resolution. However, the first English warship to bear the name Resolution was actually the first rate Prince Royal , which was renamed Resolution in 1650 following the inauguration of the Commonwealth, and continued to bear that name until...

and HMS Discovery
HMS Discovery
Eleven ships of the Royal Navy and a reserve shore establishment of the Canadian Navy have borne the name HMS/HMCS Discovery, while ships of other branches have also used the name:...

Cook's Third Voyage to find the North-West passage by crossing the Bering Strait

Bering Strait

The Bering Strait , known to natives as Imakpik, is a sea strait between Cape Dezhnev, Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia, the easternmost point of the Asian continent and Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska, USA, the westernmost point of the North American continent, with latitude of about 65°40'N,...

. Cook was killed in the Hawaiian archipelago.

Captains: James Cook
James Cook
Captain James Cook, FRS, RN was a British explorer, navigator and cartographer who ultimately rose to the rank of captain in the Royal Navy...

(1728–1779) (Resolution) and Charles Clerke
Charles Clerke
Captain Charles Clerke RN was an officer in the Royal Navy who sailed on four voyages of exploration.Clerke started studying at the Royal Naval Academy in Portsmouth when he was 13. During the Seven Years' War he served aboard HMS Dorsetshire and HMS Bellona...

(1741–1779) (Discovery)
Surgeon-naturalists: William Anderson
William Anderson (naturalist)
William Anderson was a Scottish naturalist, one of seven children of schoolmaster Robert Anderson and Jean...

(1750–1788) and William Ellis (1747–1810)
Astronomer: Joseph Billings
Joseph Billings
Joseph Billings was an English navigator and explorer who spent the most significant part of his life in Russian service.In 1785, the Russian government of Catherine II commissioned a new expedition in search for the Northeast Passage, led by English officer Joseph Billings, who had previously...

(1758–1806)
Illustrater: John Webber
John Webber
John Webber was an English artist best known for his images of early Alaska and Hawaii.Webber was born on 6 October 1751 in London, educated in Switzerland and studied painting at Paris....

(1750–1793)
Crew member: George Vancouver
George Vancouver
Captain George Vancouver RN was an English officer of the British Royal Navy, best known for his 1791-95 expedition, which explored and charted North America's northwestern Pacific Coast regions, including the coasts of contemporary Alaska, British Columbia, Washington and Oregon...

was to become a celebrated explorer himself.

1785–1788: La Boussole and L'Astrolabe
French ship Astrolabe (1817)
The Astrolabe was a horse barge converted to an exploration ship of the French Navy. She is famous for her travels with Jules Dumont d'Urville.The name derives from an early navigational instrument, the astrolabe, a precursor to the sextant.-Legacy:...

French King Louis XVI inspired by Cook's voyages mounted his own expedition under the direction odf La Pérouse

La Perouse

La Perouse may refer to* Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse, a French naval officer and explorer,and the following places which were named after him:* La Perouse, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney...

. Cook’s anti-scorbutic remedies to eradicate scurvy

Scurvy

Scurvy is a disease resulting from a deficiency of vitamin C, which is required for the synthesis of collagen in humans. The chemical name for vitamin C, ascorbic acid, is derived from the Latin name of scurvy, scorbutus, which also provides the adjective scorbutic...

were applied successfully. Lamanon and twelve other members of the expedition were massacred by natives at Vanuatu

Vanuatu

Vanuatu , officially the Republic of Vanuatu , is an island nation located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is some east of northern Australia, northeast of New Caledonia, west of Fiji, and southeast of the Solomon Islands, near New Guinea.Vanuatu was...

New Hebrides

New Hebrides was the colonial name for an island group in the South Pacific that now forms the nation of Vanuatu. The New Hebrides were colonized by both the British and French in the 18th century shortly after Captain James Cook visited the islands...

where they were looking for water. The two ships disappeared in the Solomon Islands

Solomon Islands

, at Vanikoro, during a violent storm.

Captain: Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse (1741–1788) (La Boussole) and Paul Antoine Fleuriot de Langle
Paul Antoine Fleuriot de Langle
Paul Antoine Fleuriot de Langle was a French vicomte, académicien de marine, naval commander and explorer. He was second in command of the La Pérouse expedition, which departed France on 1 August 1785 and was eventually lost in the Pacific...

(1744–1787) (L'Astrolabe)
Chief Engineer: Paul Mérault Monneron
Paul Mérault Monneron
Paul Mérault Monneron or de Monneron was an engineer officer in the French armed forces and from 1785 to 1788 a member of Lapérouse's expedition.- Family :...

(1748–1788)
Geologist: Robert de Lamanon
Robert de Lamanon
Jean Honoré Robert de Paul de Lamanon, known as Robert de Lamanon was a French botanist, physician and meteorologist. He joined several scientific expeditions and eventually died on one .-Family:He belonged to the lordly family of Lamanon, ennobled in 1572...

(1752–1787)
Artists: the uncle and nephew Prevost, Duché De Vancy
Naturalists: Jean-André Mongez
Jean-André Mongez
Jean-André Mongez was a French priest and mineralogist. He died at Vanikoro, on the La Pérouse expedition.-Life:Mongez was born in Lyon...

(1751–c. 1788)
Interpreter of Russian: Barthélemy de Lesseps
Barthélemy de Lesseps
Jean-Baptiste Barthélemy de Lesseps was a French diplomat and writer, member of the scientific expedition of Jean-François de Galaup, comte de La Pérouse and uncle of Ferdinand de Lesseps.-Family and early career:His childhood was spent in Hamburg and then St...

(1766–1834) landed at Petropavlovsk, and in charge of bringing to France the log, maps and drawings of the trip.

1785–1794: Slava Rossy

A Russian expedition commanded by the British Captain Joseph Billings, astronomer on Cook's third voyage. This expedition lasted more than ten years attempting, unsuccessfully, to find the northwest passage

Northwest Passage

The Northwest Passage is a sea route through the Arctic Ocean, along the northern coast of North America via waterways amidst the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans...

that had remained undiscovered after Cook's explorations.

Captain: Joseph Billings
Joseph Billings
Joseph Billings was an English navigator and explorer who spent the most significant part of his life in Russian service.In 1785, the Russian government of Catherine II commissioned a new expedition in search for the Northeast Passage, led by English officer Joseph Billings, who had previously...

(c. 1758–1806)
Naturalists: Carl Heinrich Merck and Carl Krebs
Carl Krebs
Carl Immanuel Krebs was a Danish gymnast who competed in the 1912 Summer Olympics. He was part of the Danish team that won the bronze medal in the men's free system team gymnastics event.-External links:*...
Surgeons-naturalists: Michael Robeck and Peter Allegretti
Cartographer: Gavriil Sarytchev
Publications: J. Billings, An Account of a Geographical and Astronomical expedition to the Northern parts of Russia. (1802), translated into French the same year under the title of Voyage made by order of Empress Catherine II Russia, in the North of the Asian Russiain the icy sea, in the sea on the coasts of America, from 1785 until 1794, by commodore Billings and Anadyr (Paris, 1802); Peter Simon Pallas
Peter Simon Pallas
Peter Simon Pallas was a German zoologist and botanist who worked in Russia.- Life and work :Pallas was born in Berlin, the son of Professor of Surgery Simon Pallas. He studied with private tutors and took an interest in natural history, later attending the University of Halle and the University...

(1741–1811), Zoographia Rosso – Asiatica (1811), where he described the species discovered by this expedition.

1790–1791: La Solide

The Solide expedition

Solide expedition

The Solide expedition was the second successful circumnavigation by the French, after that by Bougainville. It occurred from 1790 to 1792 but remains little known due to its mainly commercial aims, in the fur trade between the northwest American coast and China. It was led by the French navigator...

was the second successful circumnavigation

Circumnavigation

Circumnavigation – literally, "navigation of a circumference" – refers to travelling all the way around an island, a continent, or the entire planet Earth.- Global circumnavigation :...

by the French, after that by Bougainville

Louis Antoine de Bougainville

. It occurred from 1790 to 1792 but remains little known due to its mostly commercial aims in the fur trade between the northwest American coast and China.

Captain: Étienne Marchand (1755–1793)

1789–1794: Descubierta and Atrevida

The Spanish Malaspina Expedition

Malaspina Expedition

The Malaspina Expedition was a scientific exploration that took place during a five-year voyage around the globe, commanded by Alessandro Malaspina and José de Bustamante y Guerra. Although the expedition receives its name from Malaspina, he always insisted on giving Bustamante an equal share of...

around the world explored the coasts of Spanish possessions in America and Alaska, always looking for the northwest passage

Northwest Passage

. More than 70 crates of natural history specimens were sent to Madrid. On return Captain Malaspina was forced into exile because of his ideas, suggesting, among other things, that Spain abandon the military domination of its colonies in favour of a Federation. The scientific journal of the trip was lost but revovered in 1885.

Captains: Alessandro Malaspina
Alessandro Malaspina
Alessandro Malaspina was an Italian nobleman who spent most of his life as a Spanish naval officer and explorer...

(1754–1810) ("Descubierta") and José de Bustamante y Guerra
José de Bustamante y Guerra
José de Bustamante y Guerra , sometimes referred to simply as Bustamante, was a Spanish naval officer, explorer, and politician. He was a native of Corvera de Toranzo in Cantabria, Spain.-Early life:In 1770 Bustamante became a midshipman at the Academy of the Guardiamarinas in Cádiz...

(1759–1825) ("Atravida")
Naturalists: Antonio Pineda y Ramírez (1751–1792), Thaddäus Haenke
Thaddäus Haenke
Thaddäus Xaverius Peregrinus Haenke was a geographer and explorer in South America.-Biography:Thaddaeus Haenke was born of ethnic German extraction in the Bohemian village of Kreibnitz , near the Sudeten Mountains in 1761...

(1761–1817), Luis Née
Luis Née
Luis Née was a Franco-Spanish botanist, who accompanied the Malaspina expedition to the Pacific Ocean coasts of North America and Australia.He described many new plants, including the Coast Live Oak, which he discovered in California....

(c. 1789–1794) and Tomas de Suria
Tomás de Suria
Tomás de Suría was a Spanish artist and explorer. He accompanied Alessandro Malaspina during his expedition to the Pacific States of the United States from 1789 to 1795.-Early life:...
Artist: José del Pozo and José Guío
Publication: Pedro de Novo y Colson (1846–1931), Viaje político-científico alrededor del mundo: por las corbetas Descubierta y Atrevida al mando los capitanes navío d. Alejandro Malaspina y Don José de Bustamante y Guerra, desde 1789 á 1794. (Madrid, 1885).

1791–1794: La Recherche
French ship Recherche (1787)
The Recherche was a 20-gun Marsouin class scow of the French Navy, later reclassified as a 12-gun frigate. She earned fame as one of the ships of Bruni d'Entrecasteaux' expedition, along with Espérance...

and L'Espérance
French ship Espérance (1781)
The Espérance was a Rhône class scow of the French Navy, later reclassified as a frigate. She earned fame as one of the ships of Bruni d'Entrecasteaux' expedition, along with Recherche...

An expedition to find the two vessels commanded by Jean-François de La Pérouse (1741–1788) and of which there was no news after they left Port Jackson

Port Jackson

Port Jackson, containing Sydney Harbour, is the natural harbour of Sydney, Australia. It is known for its beauty, and in particular, as the location of the Sydney Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge...

heading for southern Tasmania

Tasmania

Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...

and southern Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. Captain Kermadec died in May 1793 and Captain d'Entrecasteaux in July of the same year. The expedition was headed by a royalist and heard of the terror in France when putting in to the Dutch colonies. The crew was arrested and collections of natural history confiscated and offered by the Dutch to the British. These were however, on the express request of Joseph Banks

Joseph Banks

(1743–1820) returned to France

Captains: Antoine Bruni d'Entrecasteaux
Bruni d'Entrecasteaux
Antoine Raymond Joseph de Bruni d'Entrecasteaux was a French navigator who explored the Australian coast in 1792 while seeking traces of the lost expedition of La Pérouse....

(1737–1793) (La Recherche
La Recherche
La Recherche is a monthly French language popular science magazine covering recent scientific news. It is published by the Société d'éditions scientifiques , a subsidiary of Financière Tallandier....

) and Jean-Michel de Kermadec
Jean-Michel Huon de Kermadec
Jean-Michel Huon de Kermadec was an 18th century French navigator. In September 1791 he was chosen to command the Espérance on the Bruni d'Entrecasteaux expedition to find the lost expedition of Jean-François de La Pérouse. The expedition explored Australia and the South Pacific...

(1748–1793) (L'Espérance
L'Espérance
L'Espérance was a newspaper published in Guinea, appearing in the period shortly after the relaxation of Guinean press laws in 1993. The newspaper was published by the Guinean Red Cross. By 1995 publication of the newspaper was discountinued....

)
Naturalists: Jacques-Julien de Labillardière (1755–1834), Claude Riche (1762–1798), Jean Blavier (1764–1828), the father Louis Ventenat
Louis Ventenat
Louis Ventenat was a French Catholic priest and naturalist who was born in Limoges. He was the brother of botanist Étienne Pierre Ventenat ....

(1765–1794) and Louis Deschamps (1765–1842)
Hydrographer: Charles-François Beautemps-Beaupré
Charles-François Beautemps-Beaupré
Charles-François Beautemps-Beaupré was a French hydrographer, hydrographic engineer and cartographer. He was a member of the Académie des sciences and the Bureau des Longitudes and is held to be the father of modern French hydrography...

(1766–1854)
Gardener: Félix Delahaye
Félix Delahaye
Félix Delahaye Félix's surname is variously presented as de Lahaie, Delahaie, de Lahaye, de La Haye, and Lahaie. was a French gardener who served on the Bruni d'Entrecasteaux voyage that was sent by the French National Assembly to search for the missing explorer Jean-François La Perouse.Delahaye...

(1767–1829)
Artist: Piron (?–1796)
Publication: J.H. La Billardière, Relation of the voyage for the Perugia, made by order of the constituent Assembly during the years 1791, 1792 and during the first and second years of the Republic Françoise (Paris, 1799); Elizabeth Rossel Voyage of Entrecasteaux, sent for Lapérouse, 2 vols, 1809.

1791–1793: HMS Providence and HMS Wizard
HMS Wizard
Six ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Wizard. was a Brig-Sloop launched 1805 and sold October 1816. was a launched in May 1830 and wrecked 1859. was a launched in August 1860 and scrapped 1879. was a launched in August 1889 and renamed HMS Karakatta in April 1890. was a launched in...

The Royal Society offered a reward of fifty pounds for living Bread-fruit plants. Bligh completed this, his second mission to collect breadfruit

Breadfruit

Breadfruit is a species of flowering tree in the mulberry family, Moraceae, growing throughout Southeast Asia and most Pacific Ocean islands...

plants and other botanical specimens from the Pacific. These he transported to the West Indies, specimens being given to the Royal Botanic Gardens in St. Vincent

Botanic Gardens St. Vincent

The St Vincent Botanical Gardens is located in Kingstown, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. It is one of the oldest in the Western Hemisphere and perhaps the oldest in the tropical world. Conservation of rare species of plants has been practiced here since 1765...

. This expedition was a success, returning to the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew with 1,283 plants including varieties of apple, pear, oranges and mangoes. In addition to these specimens, the expedition accomplished many observations and cartographic surveys in the South Seas.

Captain: William Bligh
William Bligh
Vice Admiral William Bligh FRS RN was an officer of the British Royal Navy and a colonial administrator. A notorious mutiny occurred during his command of HMAV Bounty in 1789; Bligh and his loyal men made a remarkable voyage to Timor, after being set adrift in the Bounty's launch by the mutineers...

(1754–1817)
Surgeons-naturalists: Thomas Dancer (c. 1750–1811)

1791–1795: HMS Discovery
HMS Discovery (1789)
HMS Discovery was a Royal Navy ship launched in 1789 and best known as the lead ship in George Vancouver's exploration of the west coast of North America in his famous 1791-1795 expedition. She was converted to a bomb vessel in 1798 and participated in the Battle of Copenhagen. Thereafter she...

and HMS Chatham
HMS Chatham (1788)
HMS Chatham was a Royal Navy survey brig that accompanied HMS Discovery on George Vancouver's exploration of the west coast of North America in his 1791–1795 expedition. Chatham was built by King, of Dover and launched in early 1788...

A mission to the South Seas

Pacific Ocean

and Pacific Northwest coast of America. In 1791, HMS Discovery left England with HMS Chatham. Both ships anchored at Cape Town

Cape Town

Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...

before exploring the south coast of Australia. In King George Sound, the Discovery's naturalist and surgeon Archibald Menzies collected various plant species including Banksia grandis
Banksia grandis
Banksia grandis, commonly known as Bull Banksia, Giant Banksia or Mangite, is a common and distinctive tree in South West Western Australia....

, the first recording of the Banksia
Banksia
Banksia is a genus of around 170 species in the plant family Proteaceae. These Australian wildflowers and popular garden plants are easily recognised by their characteristic flower spikes and fruiting "cones" and heads. When it comes to size, banksias range from prostrate woody shrubs to trees up...

genus from Western Australia. The two ships sailed to Hawaii where Vancouver named Kamehameha I. Chatham and Discovery then sailed on to the Northwest Pacific. Over the course of the next four years, Vancouver surveyed the northern Pacific Ocean coast in Discovery wintering in Spanish California or Hawaii. Discovery's primary mission was to exert British sovereignty over this part of the Northwest Coast following the hand-over of the Spanish Fort San Miguel at Nootka Sound, although exploration in co-operation with the Spanish was seen as an important secondary objective. Exploration work was successful as relations with the Spanish went well; resupply in California was especially helpful. Vancouver and the Spanish commandant Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra were on such good terms that the original name of Vancouver Island was actually Vancouver and Quadra's Island.

Captains: George Vancouver
George Vancouver
Captain George Vancouver RN was an English officer of the British Royal Navy, best known for his 1791-95 expedition, which explored and charted North America's northwestern Pacific Coast regions, including the coasts of contemporary Alaska, British Columbia, Washington and Oregon...

(1757–1798) (HMS Discovery
HMS Discovery (1789)
HMS Discovery was a Royal Navy ship launched in 1789 and best known as the lead ship in George Vancouver's exploration of the west coast of North America in his famous 1791-1795 expedition. She was converted to a bomb vessel in 1798 and participated in the Battle of Copenhagen. Thereafter she...

) and William Robert Broughton
William Robert Broughton
William Robert Broughton was a British naval officer in the late 18th century. As a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy, he commanded HMS Chatham as part of the Vancouver Expedition, a voyage of exploration through the Pacific Ocean led by Captain George Vancouver in the early 1790s.-With Vancouver:In...

(1763–1822) (HMS Chatham
HMS Chatham
Fifteen ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Chatham after the port of Chatham, Kent, home of the Chatham Dockyard.*HMS Chatham was a galliot captured in 1666 during the Second Anglo-Dutch War and given away in 1667....

)
Naturalist: Archibald Menzies
Archibald Menzies
Archibald Menzies was a Scottish surgeon, botanist and naturalist.- Life and career :Menzies was born at Easter Stix in the parish of Weem, in Perthshire. While working with his elder brother William at the Royal Botanic Gardens, he drew the attention of Dr John Hope, professor of botany at...

(1754–1842)
Physician-naturalist: Alexander Cranstoun

1800–1804: Le Géographe
French corvette Géographe
The Géographe was a 20-gun Serpente class corvette of the French Navy.She was named Uranie in 1797, and renamed Galatée in 1799, still on her building site, as her builder refused to launched her, as he had not been paid...

and Naturaliste
French corvette Naturaliste
The Naturaliste was a Salamandre class bomb-corvette of the French Navy.She was launched in 1795 as La Menaçante. She was renamed to La Naturaliste in June 1800 and under Jacques Hamelin, she took part in the exploration of Australia of Nicolas Baudin.Following her return in 1802, she saw service...

This expedition was organised to establish a permanent colonial presence in the South seas before the British, concentrating on the mapping of the coast of the Australia and New Guinea. Baudin died in Mauritius

Mauritius

Mauritius , officially the Republic of Mauritius is an island nation off the southeast coast of the African continent in the southwest Indian Ocean, about east of Madagascar...

in 1803, another naturalist on the island of Timor

Timor

Timor is an island at the southern end of Maritime Southeast Asia, north of the Timor Sea. It is divided between the independent state of East Timor, and West Timor, belonging to the Indonesian province of East Nusa Tenggara. The island's surface is 30,777 square kilometres...

, two other naturalists chose to stay on the island and two astronomers died of dysentery

Dysentery

Dysentery is an inflammatory disorder of the intestine, especially of the colon, that results in severe diarrhea containing mucus and/or blood in the faeces with fever and abdominal pain. If left untreated, dysentery can be fatal.There are differences between dysentery and normal bloody diarrhoea...

. Péron, assisted by his friend Lesueur, managed to gather a vast zoological collection. The Le Naturaliste returned to France in 1803 with a part of the collections. Captain Baudin bought a schooner

Schooner

A schooner is a type of sailing vessel characterized by the use of fore-and-aft sails on two or more masts with the forward mast being no taller than the rear masts....

, the Casuarina then at Port Jackson

Port Jackson

. Baudin was replaced by Pierre Bernard Milius (1773–1829).

Commanders: Nicolas Baudin
Nicolas Baudin
Nicolas-Thomas Baudin was a French explorer, cartographer, naturalist and hydrographer.Baudin was born a commoner in Saint-Martin-de-Ré on the Île de Ré. At the age of fifteen he joined the merchant navy, and at twenty joined the French East India Company...

(1754–1803) ("Le Géographe") and Jacques Hamelin (1768–1839) ("Le Naturaliste").
Physician, surgeon (first doctor in the Navy) and biologist: Pierre François Keraudren
Pierre François Keraudren
Pierre François Keraudren was a scientist and physician in the French Navy.His name has been honoured in several ways:* Keraudren Island is located west of Australia at ....

(1769–1858) ("Le Géographe").
Naturalists: Jean Baptiste Leschenault de la Tour
Jean Baptiste Leschenault de la Tour
Jean Baptiste Louis Claude Theodore Leschenault de la Tour was a French botanist and ornithologist.Leschenault de la Tour was chief botanist on Nicolas Baudin's expedition to Australia between 1800 and 1803...

(1773–1826), René Maugé Cely, Stanislas Levillain (1774–1801), François Péron
François Péron
François Auguste Péron was a French naturalist and explorer. He is credited with the first use of the term anthropology.-Explorations:...

(1775–1810), Jean-Baptiste Bory de Saint-Vincent (1778–1846) (left the expedition to Mauritius), Désiré Dumont, André Michaux
André Michaux
André Michaux was a French botanist and explorer.-Biography:Michaux was born in Satory, now part of Versailles, Yvelines. After the death of his wife within a year of their marriage he took up the study of botany and was a student of Bernard de Jussieu...

(1746–1803)
Artist: Charles-Alexandre Lesueur (1778–1846) assisted by Nicolas-Martin Petit (1777–1804)
Astronomers: Pierre-François Bernier (1779–1803) and Frédéric de Bissy (1768–1803)
Cartographer: Charles-Pierre Boullanger
Charles-Pierre Boullanger
Charles-Pierre Boullanger was a French geographer who served on Nicolas Baudin’s scientific expedition to the South Seas from 1800 to 1803. He was a midshipman cartographer and hydrographic engineer on the survey vessel Le Géographe with the sister ship Naturaliste...
Mineralogist: Louis Depuch, Joseph Charles Bailly
Publications: F. Péron, Voyage of discovery to the southern lands (three volumes, Paris, 1807–1816); many species of birds are described by Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot
Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot
Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot was a French ornithologist.Vieillot described a large number of birds for the first time, especially those he encountered during the time he spent in the West Indies and North America, and 26 genera established by him are still in use...

(1748–1831) in the New Dictionary of Natural History (1816–1819).

1801–1803: HMS Investigator

The first circumnavigation of Australia. The work of scientific observation was interrupted due to damage and many specimens transferred to the HMS Porpoise

HMS Porpoise

Eleven ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Porpoise, after the marine mammal, the Porpoise:*HMS Porpoise was a 16-gun sloop, formerly the Annapolis, purchased in 1777...

were lost when it sank. The observations of Brown on the flora of this continent were the most extensive at this time.

Captain: Matthew Flinders
Matthew Flinders
Captain Matthew Flinders RN was one of the most successful navigators and cartographers of his age. In a career that spanned just over twenty years, he sailed with Captain William Bligh, circumnavigated Australia and encouraged the use of that name for the continent, which had previously been...

(1774–1814).
Naturalist: Robert Brown
Robert Brown (botanist)
Robert Brown was a Scottish botanist and palaeobotanist who made important contributions to botany largely through his pioneering use of the microscope...

(1773–1858)
Physician-naturalist: Hugh Bell
Mineralogist: John Allen
Astronomer: John Crosley
Artists: Ferdinand Bauer
Ferdinand Bauer
Ferdinand Lucas Bauer was an Austrian botanical illustrator who travelled on Matthew Flinders' expedition to Australia.-Biography:...

(1760–1826) and William Westall
William Westall
William Bury Westall was an English novelist born in Old Accrington, Lancashire, England.Originally a businessman, he later became a journalist who also wrote about 30 pot-boiler romantic novels with titles including The Old Factory, Strange Crimes and Her Ladyship's Secret...

(1781–1850)
Publication: M. Flinders, A Voyage to Terra Australis, undertaken for the purpose of completing the discovery of that vast country and prosecuted in the years 1801, 1802 and 1803 ... (two volumes, 1814).

1803–1806: SRS Nadezhda
Russian warship Nadezhda
The Russian warship Nadezhda was a three-masted sloop-of-war frigate, commonly called "frigate Nadezhda" in Russia.It was built in London in the spring of 1800 as a 425-ton sloop named , and sold to Russia...

and Neva
Russian warship Neva
Neva was a Russian sloop-of-war, bought in Britain. It was named after the Neva River.It was the first Russian ship to circumnavigate the globe in 1804 under the command of Lieutenant Commander Yuri Lisyansky...

The first Russian circumnavigation of the world inteded to establish a link with Russian possessions in America, the transport of goods at that time being via Siberia (a journey lasting about two years). The second objective was to establish trade and diplomatic links with Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

(but without success), the crew is recorded during five months before be returned on the waves, the present of the emperor Alexander I

Alexander I of Russia

Alexander I of Russia , served as Emperor of Russia from 23 March 1801 to 1 December 1825 and the first Russian King of Poland from 1815 to 1825. He was also the first Russian Grand Duke of Finland and Lithuania....

(1777–1825).

The Ships explored the Aleutian Islands, Sakhalin

Sakhalin

Sakhalin or Saghalien, is a large island in the North Pacific, lying between 45°50' and 54°24' N.It is part of Russia, and is Russia's largest island, and is administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast...

and discovered the mouth of the Love River

Love River

The Love River or Ai River is a river in southern Taiwan. It originates in Renwu District, Kaohsiung City, and flows through Kaohsiung to Kaohsiung Harbor. Love River is the spine of Kaohsiung, playing a similar role to the River Thames of London. It is of great cultural significance to the...

. They also visit the Marquesas Islands

Marquesas Islands

The Marquesas Islands enana and Te Fenua `Enata , both meaning "The Land of Men") are a group of volcanic islands in French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity of France in the southern Pacific Ocean. The Marquesas are located at 9° 00S, 139° 30W...

and Hawaii

Hawaii

Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...

. Baron von Langsdorff left the expedition in 1805 to explore the Interior of Alaska and California. Thirteen cases of natural history specimens were shipped to the Academy of sciences St. Petersburg.

Captains: Adam Johann von Krusenstern
Adam Johann von Krusenstern
Adam Johann Ritter von Krusenstern , was an admiral and explorer, who led the first Russian circumnavigation of the globe.- Life :...

(1770–1846) (Nadezhda) and Yuri Fyodorovich Lisianski (Neva)
Naturalist: Georg Heinrich von Langsdorff (1774–1852)
Physician-naturalist: Wilhelm Gottlieb von Tilesius von Tilenau (1769–1857)
Publication: G. H. von Langsdorff, Bemerkungen auf einer Reise um die Welt in den Jahren 1803 bis 1807, von G. h. von Langsdorff, ... (Frankfurt am Main, two volumes, 1812).

1815–1818: Rurik

A Russian expedition funded by the Chancellor of Russia, count Nikolai P. Romanzof to investigate the northeast passage in the Bering Sea

Bering Sea

The Bering Sea is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean. It comprises a deep water basin, which then rises through a narrow slope into the shallower water above the continental shelves....

. The coast of Alaska

Alaska

Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...

was studied and the South Pacific

Pacific Ocean

, also the cartography

Cartography

Cartography is the study and practice of making maps. Combining science, aesthetics, and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality can be modeled in ways that communicate spatial information effectively.The fundamental problems of traditional cartography are to:*Set the map's...

of 36 islands including the Marshall Islands

Marshall Islands

The Republic of the Marshall Islands , , is a Micronesian nation of atolls and islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, just west of the International Date Line and just north of the Equator. As of July 2011 the population was 67,182...

. Also natural history collections made.

Captain: Otto von Kotzebue
Otto von Kotzebue
Otto von Kotzebue was a Baltic German navigator in Russian service....

(1787–1846)
Naturalist: Adelbert von Chamisso
Adelbert von Chamisso
Adelbert von Chamisso was a German poet and botanist.- Life :He was born Louis Charles Adélaïde de Chamissot at the château of Boncourt at Ante, in Champagne, France, the ancestral seat of his family...

(1781–1838)
Physician-naturalist: Johann Friedrich von Eschscholtz
Johann Friedrich von Eschscholtz
Johann Friedrich Eschscholtz was a Livonian physician, botanist, zoologist and entomologist.Eschscholtz was born in Dorpat , Governorate of Livonia in the Russian Empire...

(1793–1831)
Publication: J.F. Eschscholtz, Entdeckungs - Reise in die Süd - See und nach der Berings - Strasse zur Erforschung einer nordöstlichen Durchfahrt, unternommen in den Jahren 1815, 1816, 1817 1818 und, auf Kosten… a… Grafen Rumanzoff, auf dem Schiffe ″Rurick″, unter dem Befehle of the Lieutenants… Otto von Kotzebue… (three volumes, Weimer, 1821).

1817–1820: L'Uranie and La Physicienne

A French expedition exploring Western Australia and islands of Timor

Timor

, Molucca, Samoa

Samoa

Samoa , officially the Independent State of Samoa, formerly known as Western Samoa is a country encompassing the western part of the Samoan Islands in the South Pacific Ocean. It became independent from New Zealand in 1962. The two main islands of Samoa are Upolu and one of the biggest islands in...

and Hawaii

Hawaii

. L'Uranie visited Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...

to take a series of pendulum measurements as well as other observations, not only in geography

Geography

and ethnology

Ethnology

Ethnology is the branch of anthropology that compares and analyzes the origins, distribution, technology, religion, language, and social structure of the ethnic, racial, and/or national divisions of humanity.-Scientific discipline:Compared to ethnography, the study of single groups through direct...

, but in astronomy

Astronomy

Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...

, terrestrial magnetism, and meteorology

Meteorology

, and for the collection of specimens in natural history.

Commander: Commander Louis Claude de Saulces Freycinet
Louis de Freycinet
Louis Claude de Saulces de Freycinet was a French navigator. He circumnavigated the earth, and was one of the first to produce a comprehensive map of the coastline of Australia.-Biography:...

(1779–1842)
Second: Louis Isidore Duperrey
Louis Isidore Duperrey
Louis Isidore Duperrey was a French sailor and explorer.Duperrey joined the navy in 1800, and served as marine hydrologist to Louis Claude de Saulces de Freycinet aboard the Uranie...

(1786–1865)
Physician-naturalist: Joseph Paul Gaimard
Joseph Paul Gaimard
Joseph Paul Gaimard was a French naval surgeon and naturalist.Along with Jean René Constant Quoy he served as naturalist on the ships L'Uranie under Louis de Freycinet 1817-1820, and L'Astrolabe under Jules Dumont d'Urville 1826-1829...

(1796–1858) and Jean René Constant Quoy
Jean René Constant Quoy
Jean René Constant Quoy was a French zoologist.Along with Joseph Paul Gaimard he served as naturalist aboard La Coquille under Louis Isidore Duperrey during its circumnavigation of the globe , and the Astrolabe under the command of Jules Dumont d'Urville...

(1790–1869)
Botanist: Charles Gaudichaud-Beaupré
Charles Gaudichaud-Beaupré
Charles Gaudichaud-Beaupré was a French botanist.He was born in Angoulême, the son of J-J. Gaudichaud and Rose Gaudichaud. He studied pharmacology at Cognac and Angoulême. He also studied chemistry and herbology.His greatest claim to fame was serving as botanist on a circumglobal expedition from...

(1789–1854)
Illustrator: Jacques Arago
Jacques Arago
Jacques Étienne Victor Arago was a French writer, artist and explorer, author of a Voyage Round the World.-Biography:...

(1790–1855), Adrien Taunay the Younger
Adrien Taunay the Younger
Adrien Taunay the Younger was a French painter and draftsman.He was born in Paris in 1803, the son of history and genre painter Nicolas-Antoine Taunay . Adrien moved to Rio de Janeiro in 1816, accompanying his father, who was a member of the French Artistic Mission...

(1803–1828)
Publication: de Freycinet, L. Voyage autour du Monde...exécuté sur les corvettes de L. M. "L'Uranie" et "La Physicienne," pendant les années 1817, 1818, 1819 et 1820. Paris. pp. 192–401. J. Arago, Drive around the world during the years 1817, 1818, 1819 and 1820, on the corvettes of the King the Urania and physicist, commissioned by Mr. Freycinet, by Js. Arago, designer of the expedition (Paris, 2 volumes, 1822).

1819–1821: Le Rhône and La Durance

One of the missions of this expedition and recruit workers to Java

Java

Java is an island of Indonesia. With a population of 135 million , it is the world's most populous island, and one of the most densely populated regions in the world. It is home to 60% of Indonesia's population. The Indonesian capital city, Jakarta, is in west Java...

and Philippines

Philippines

The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

to Guiana

Guiana

The Guiana Shield is one of the three cratons of the South American Plate. It is a 1.7 billion year old Precambrian geological formation in northeast South America that forms a portion of the northern coast. The higher elevations on the shield are called the Guiana Highlands, which is where the...

. Botanist Samuel Perrottet (1793–1870) settled in Guyana to investigate the acclimation of plants reported to Asia

Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

. La Durance returned to France in 1820, Le Rhône the following year.

Captain: Pierre Henri Philibert (1774-?)
Botanist: George Samuel Perrottet
George Samuel Perrottet
George Samuel Perrottet was a Swiss-born, French botanist and horticulturalist who was a native of Vully, canton Vaud....

(1793–1870)

1822–1825: La Coquille

The Government prefers to give the scientific part two doctors to edge rather than professional naturalists. Doctor Garnot, with dysentery

Dysentery

, must return to Europe with a part of collections collected in South America

South America

South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...

and the Pacific. The ship brings back, the "Castle Forbes", it fails and is lost in the Cape of Good Hope

Cape of Good Hope

The Cape of Good Hope is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula, South Africa.There is a misconception that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Africa, because it was once believed to be the dividing point between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. In fact, the...

. Captain Duperrey had a tour of the l world ' Urania '. On "The shell" is also Jules Dumont d'Urville

Jules Dumont d'Urville

Jules Sébastien César Dumont d'Urville was a French explorer, naval officer and rear admiral, who explored the south and western Pacific, Australia, New Zealand and Antarctica.-Childhood:Dumont was born at Condé-sur-Noireau...

(1790–1842) who participates in the botanical study.La Coquille was later named L'Astrolabe.

Commander: Navy lieutenant Louis Isidore Duperrey
Louis Isidore Duperrey
Louis Isidore Duperrey was a French sailor and explorer.Duperrey joined the navy in 1800, and served as marine hydrologist to Louis Claude de Saulces de Freycinet aboard the Uranie...

(1786–1865)
Second: lieutenant vessel and botanist Jules Dumont d'Urville
Jules Dumont d'Urville
Jules Sébastien César Dumont d'Urville was a French explorer, naval officer and rear admiral, who explored the south and western Pacific, Australia, New Zealand and Antarctica.-Childhood:Dumont was born at Condé-sur-Noireau...

(1790–1842)
Physician-naturalist: the surgeon, pharmacist and zoologist René Primevère Lesson (1794–1849) and surgeon-major Prosper Garnot
Prosper Garnot
Prosper Garnot was a French surgeon and naturalist.Garnot was born at Brest. He was an assistant surgeon under Louis Isidore Duperrey on La Coquille during its circumnavigation of the globe . Along with Rene Primevere Lesson he collected numerous natural history specimens in South America and the...

(1794–1838)
Astronomer: sign of vessel Charles Hector Jacquinot
Charles Jacquinot
Charles Hector Jacquinot was a noted mariner, best known for his role in early French Antarctic surveys.He was an ensign on the Coquille. His first trip to Antarctica was made in 1826–29 with Jules Dumont d'Urville. For that voyage, Jacquinot was awarded the Cross of Honor.Jacquinot held the rank...

(1796–1879)
Illustrators: Jules Louis Le Jeune
Louis-François, Baron Lejeune
Louis-François, Baron Lejeune was a French general, painter, and lithographer. His memoirs have frequently been republished and his name is engraved on the Arc de Triomphe.-Life:...

(1775–1848), Jacques Arago
Jacques Arago
Jacques Étienne Victor Arago was a French writer, artist and explorer, author of a Voyage Round the World.-Biography:...

(1790–1855)
Hydrographer: Victor Charles Lottin (1795–1858)
Publications: Lesson and Garnot, "journey around the world on the corvette… performed… Shell in the years 1822, 1823, 1824 and 1825… " (Paris, six volumes, 1826–1830).

1823–1826: Predpriyatiye

An expedition in two ships of war, the main object of which was to take reinforcements to Kamchatka. There was, however, a staff of scientists on board the Russian sailing sloop Predpriyatiye (Enterprise), who collected much valuable information and material in geography, ethnography and natural history. The expedition, proceeding by Cape Horn, visited the Radak and Society Islands, and reached Petropavlovsk in July 1824. Many positions along the coast were rectified, the Navigator islands visited, and several discoveries made. The expedition returned by the Marianas, Philippines, New Caledonia and the Hawaiian Islands, reaching Kronstadt on July 10, 1826.

Captain: Otto von Kotzebue
Otto von Kotzebue
Otto von Kotzebue was a Baltic German navigator in Russian service....

(1787–1846)
Physician-naturalist: Johann Friedrich von Eschscholtz
Johann Friedrich von Eschscholtz
Johann Friedrich Eschscholtz was a Livonian physician, botanist, zoologist and entomologist.Eschscholtz was born in Dorpat , Governorate of Livonia in the Russian Empire...

(1793–1831) and Dr. Lenz
Publication: O. von Kotzebue, Reise um die Welt in den Jahren 1823, 24, 25 und 26, von Otto von Kotzebue, ... (Weimer, 1830).

1824–1825:

In 1824 Byron was chosen to accompany homewards the bodies of Hawaiian monarchs

Kingdom of Hawaii

The Kingdom of Hawaii was established during the years 1795 to 1810 with the subjugation of the smaller independent chiefdoms of Oahu, Maui, Molokai, Lānai, Kauai and Niihau by the chiefdom of Hawaii into one unified government...

Liholiho (known as King Kamehameha II

Kamehameha II

Kamehameha II was the second king of the Kingdom of Hawaii. His birth name was Liholiho and full name was Kalaninui kua Liholiho i ke kapu Iolani...

) and Queen Kamāmalu

Kamamalu

Kamāmalu Kalani-Kuaana-o-Kamehamalu-Kekuaiwa-o-kalani-Kealii-Hoopili-a-Walu was Queen consort of the Kingdom of Hawaii as the wife of King Kamehameha II. She is not to be confused with Princess Victoria Kamāmalu who was her niece...

, who had died of measles

Measles

Measles, also known as rubeola or morbilli, is an infection of the respiratory system caused by a virus, specifically a paramyxovirus of the genus Morbillivirus. Morbilliviruses, like other paramyxoviruses, are enveloped, single-stranded, negative-sense RNA viruses...

during a state visit to England. He sailed on the in September 1824, accompanied by several naturalists and, amongst his lieutenants, Edward Belcher

Edward Belcher

Admiral Sir Edward Belcher, KCB , was a British naval officer and explorer. He was the great-grandson of Governor Jonathan Belcher. His wife, Diana Jolliffe, was the stepdaughter of Captain Peter Heywood.-Early life:...

.
He toured the islands and recorded his observations. With the consent of Christian missionaries to the islands, he also removed wooden carvings and other artifacts of the chiefs of ancient Hawaii

Ancient Hawaii

Ancient Hawaii refers to the period of Hawaiian human history preceding the unification of the Kingdom of Hawaii by Kamehameha the Great in 1810. After being first settled by Polynesian long-distance navigators sometime between AD 300–800, a unique culture developed. Diversified agroforestry and...

from the temple ruins of Puuhonua O Hōnaunau

Pu'uhonua o Honaunau National Historical Park

Puuhonua o Hōnaunau National Historical Park is a United States National Historical Park located on the west coast of the island of Hawaii in the U.S. state of Hawaii. The historical park preserves the site where, up until the early 19th century, Hawaiians who broke a kapu could avoid certain...

.
On his return journey in 1825, Lord Byron discovered and charted Malden Island

Malden Island

Malden Island, sometimes called Independence Island in the nineteenth century, is a low, arid, uninhabited island in the central Pacific Ocean, about in area...

, which he named after his surveying officer, Mauke

Mauke

Mauke is a raised atoll island, the eastern most of the Cook Islands.-Geography:...

, and Starbuck Island

Starbuck Island

Starbuck Island is an uninhabited coral atoll in the central Pacific, and is part of the Central Line Islands of Kiribati...

. Starbuck was named in honour of Capt. Valentine Starbuck, an American whaler who had sighted the island while carrying the Hawaiian royal couple to England in 1823–1824, but had probably been previously by his cousin and fellow-whaler Capt. Obed Starbuck in 1823.

Captain: George Anson Byron (1789–1868)
Naturalists: Andrew Bloxam
Andrew Bloxam
Andrew Bloxam was an English clergyman and naturalist; in his later life he had a particular interest in botany. He was the naturalist on board during its voyage around South America and the Pacific in 1824–26, where he collected mainly birds...

(1801–1878) and James Macrae
Published by: G.A. Byron, Voyage of H.M.S. Blonde to the Sandwich Islands, in the years 1824–1825. The Right Hon. captain. Lord Byron order. (London, 1826).

1824–1826: Le Thétis and L'Espérance
French ship Espérance (1781)
The Espérance was a Rhône class scow of the French Navy, later reclassified as a frigate. She earned fame as one of the ships of Bruni d'Entrecasteaux' expedition, along with Recherche...

A mission to establish diplomatic relations with Indochina

Indochina

The Indochinese peninsula, is a region in Southeast Asia. It lies roughly southwest of China, and east of India. The name has its origins in the French, Indochine, as a combination of the names of "China" and "India", and was adopted when French colonizers in Vietnam began expanding their territory...

and make geographical observations. On 12 January 1825, Hyacinthe de Bougainville led an embassy to Vietnam

Vietnam

Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...

with Captain Courson de la Ville-Hélio, arriving in Da Nang

Da Nang

Đà Nẵng , occasionally Danang, is a major port city in the South Central Coast of Vietnam, on the coast of the South China Sea at the mouth of the Han River. It is the commercial and educational center of Central Vietnam; its well-sheltered, easily accessible port and its location on the path of...

, with the warships Thétis and Espérance. Although they had a 28 January 1824 letter from Louis XVIII, the ambassadors could not obtain an audience with Minh Mạng

Minh Mang

Minh Mạng was the second emperor of the Nguyễn Dynasty of Vietnam, reigning from 14 February 1820 until 20 January 1841. He was a younger son of Emperor Gia Long, whose eldest son, Crown Prince Canh, had died in 1801...

Captains: Hyacinthe de Bougainville
Hyacinthe de Bougainville
Hyacinthe Yves Philippe Potentien, baron de Bougainville was a French naval officer. He was the son of Louis-Antoine de Bougainville...

(1781–1846) (Le Thétis) and Paul de Nourquer du Camper
Paul de Nourquer du Camper
Paul de Nourquer du Camper was Governor General for Inde française in the Second French Colonial Empire during the July Monarchy. During his period an annual statistics manual was written by Pierre Constant Sicé in th year of 1842, which describes and narrates various situations in Inde...

(L’Espérance)
Surgeon-naturalist: François Louis Busseuil (1791–1835)

1825–1828: HMS Blossom
HMS Blossom (1806)
HMS Blossom was an 18-gun Cormorant-class sloop-of-war. She was built in 1806 and is best known for the 1825–1828 expedition under Captain Beechey to the Pacific Ocean. She explored as far north as Point Barrow, Alaska, the furthest point into the Arctic any non-Inuit had been at the time...

A British expedition to the Bering Sea attempting a rendesvous with the expedition of Sir John Franklin

John Franklin

Rear-Admiral Sir John Franklin KCH FRGS RN was a British Royal Navy officer and Arctic explorer. Franklin also served as governor of Tasmania for several years. In his last expedition, he disappeared while attempting to chart and navigate a section of the Northwest Passage in the Canadian Arctic...

(1786–1847) at the mouth of Mackenzie River

Mackenzie River

The Mackenzie River is the largest river system in Canada. It flows through a vast, isolated region of forest and tundra entirely within the country's Northwest Territories, although its many tributaries reach into four other Canadian provinces and territories...

. HMS Blossom reached as far north as Point Barrow

Point Barrow

Point Barrow or Nuvuk is a headland on the Arctic coast in the U.S. state of Alaska, northeast of Barrow. It is the northernmost point of all the territory of the United States, at...

, Alaska

Alaska

, the furthest point into the Arctic any non-Inuit

Inuit

The Inuit are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Canada , Denmark , Russia and the United States . Inuit means “the people” in the Inuktitut language...

had been at the time, but was unable to join the Franklin expedition. With Lay ill it was Beechey and Collie that performed most of the specimen collection but many could not be preserved.

Captain: Frederick William Beechey
Frederick William Beechey
Frederick William Beechey was an English naval officer and geographer. He was the son of Sir William Beechey, RA., and was born in London.-Career:...

(1796–1856)
Physician-naturalist: Alexander Collie
Alexander Collie
Dr Alexander Collie was a Scottish surgeon and botanist who journeyed to Western Australia in 1829, where he was an explorer and Colonial Surgeon.-Early life:...

(1793–1835)
Naturalist: George Tradescant Lay
George Tradescant Lay
George Tradescant Lay was a British naturalist, missionary and diplomat.Lay was a naturalist on the English sailing ship HMS Blossom under the command of Captain Frederick William Beechey from 1825 to 1828, where he collected specimens in the Pacific including California, Alaska, Kamchatka, China,...

(1800?–1854)
Publication: F.W. Beechey, Narrative of a Voyage to the Pacific and Behring's Strait" (1831), "The Zoology of Captain Beechey's voyage to the Pacific and Behring's Strait. (1839).

1825–1830: HMS AdventureHMS Aid (1809)
HMS Aid was a 10-gun Royal Navy transport ship launched in 1809 at Kings Lynn. She was converted to a survey ship in March 1817, and was renamed HMS Adventure in 1821. The ship was sold in 1853....

and HMS Beagle
HMS Beagle
HMS Beagle was a Cherokee-class 10-gun brig-sloop of the Royal Navy. She was launched on 11 May 1820 from the Woolwich Dockyard on the River Thames, at a cost of £7,803. In July of that year she took part in a fleet review celebrating the coronation of King George IV of the United Kingdom in which...

The mission was the hydrographic

Hydrography

Hydrography is the measurement of the depths, the tides and currents of a body of water and establishment of the sea, river or lake bed topography and morphology. Normally and historically for the purpose of charting a body of water for the safe navigation of shipping...

survey of Patagonia

Patagonia

Patagonia is a region located in Argentina and Chile, integrating the southernmost section of the Andes mountains to the southwest towards the Pacific ocean and from the east of the cordillera to the valleys it follows south through Colorado River towards Carmen de Patagones in the Atlantic Ocean...

and Tierra del Fuego

Tierra del Fuego

Tierra del Fuego is an archipelago off the southernmost tip of the South American mainland, across the Strait of Magellan. The archipelago consists of a main island Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego divided between Chile and Argentina with an area of , and a group of smaller islands including Cape...

, under the overall command of the Australian Captain Phillip Parker King, Commander

Commander

Commander is a naval rank which is also sometimes used as a military title depending on the individual customs of a given military service. Commander is also used as a rank or title in some organizations outside of the armed forces, particularly in police and law enforcement.-Commander as a naval...

and Surveyor.

In the desolate waters of Tierra del Fuego

Tierra del Fuego

Stokes, the captain of the Beagle, became depressed and shot himself on 2 August 1828 dying a few days later. Parker King replaced Stokes with Lieutenant W.G. Skyring as commander of the ship, and both ships sailed to Montevideo

Montevideo

Montevideo is the largest city, the capital, and the chief port of Uruguay. The settlement was established in 1726 by Bruno Mauricio de Zabala, as a strategic move amidst a Spanish-Portuguese dispute over the platine region, and as a counter to the Portuguese colony at Colonia del Sacramento...

. After the ships arrived at Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro

for repairs and provisioning, Rear Admiral Sir Robert Otway

Robert Otway

Admiral Sir Robert Waller Otway, 1st Baronet, GCB was a senior Royal Navy officer of the early nineteenth century who served extensively as a sea captain during the Napoleonic War and later supported the Brazilian cause during the Brazilian War of Independence...

, the Commander-in-chief of the South American station

Pacific Station

The Pacific Station, often referred to as the Pacific Squadron, was one of the geographical divisions into which the Royal Navy divided its worldwide responsibilities...

, gave command of the Beagle to his aide, Flag Lieutenant Robert FitzRoy

Robert FitzRoy

Vice-Admiral Robert FitzRoy RN achieved lasting fame as the captain of HMS Beagle during Charles Darwin's famous voyage, and as a pioneering meteorologist who made accurate weather forecasting a reality...

. Fuegians

Fuegians

Fuegians are the indigenous inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego, at the southern tip of South America. In English, the term originally referred to the Yaghan people of Tierra del Fuego...

were taken back with them when the Beagle returned. During this survey, the Beagle Channel

Beagle Channel

thumb|right|300px|Aereal view of Beagle Channel. The Chilean [[Navarino Island]] is seen in the top-right while the Argentine part of [[Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego]] is seen at the bottom-left....

was identified and named after the ship.

Captain: Philip Parker King
Philip Parker King
Admiral Phillip Parker King, FRS, RN was an early explorer of the Australian coast.-Early life and education:...

(1793–1856) (HMS Adventure) and Pringle Stokes (?–1828) (HMS Beagle)
Naturalist: James Anderson
James Anderson (botanist)
James Anderson was a Scottish physician and botanist.He was company surgeon for the East India Company from 1786 and physician-general from 1800....

(1797–1842)
Publication: P.P. King, Narrative of the first surveying voyage of H. M. ships ″Adventure″ and ″Beagle″, between the years 1826 and 1836, describing their examination of the Southern shores of South-America and the ″Beagle's″ circumnavigation of the world ... Vol. i. [containing the proceedings of the first expedition, 1826–1830 under the command of captain P. Parker King "(London, 1839).]

1826–1829: L'Astrolabe

This mission, led by Dumont d'Urville, is looking for the two vessels of La Pérouse

La Perouse

(1741–1788). The coast of the Australia

Australia

of the New Zealand

New Zealand

, of Fiji

Fiji

Fiji , officially the Republic of Fiji , is an island nation in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about northeast of New Zealand's North Island...

, Loyalty Islands

Loyalty Islands

The Loyalty Islands are an archipelago in the Pacific. They are part of the French territory of New Caledonia, whose mainland is away. They form the Loyalty Islands Province , one of the three provinces of New Caledonia...

are explored. Dumont d'Urville receives the ship La Coquille that he renamed L'Astrolabe as a tribute to the ship of La Pérouse.

Captain: Jules Dumont d'Urville
Jules Dumont d'Urville
Jules Sébastien César Dumont d'Urville was a French explorer, naval officer and rear admiral, who explored the south and western Pacific, Australia, New Zealand and Antarctica.-Childhood:Dumont was born at Condé-sur-Noireau...

(1790–1842)
Physician-naturalist: Joseph Paul Gaimard
Joseph Paul Gaimard
Joseph Paul Gaimard was a French naval surgeon and naturalist.Along with Jean René Constant Quoy he served as naturalist on the ships L'Uranie under Louis de Freycinet 1817-1820, and L'Astrolabe under Jules Dumont d'Urville 1826-1829...

(1796–1858) and Jean René Constant Quoy
Jean René Constant Quoy
Jean René Constant Quoy was a French zoologist.Along with Joseph Paul Gaimard he served as naturalist aboard La Coquille under Louis Isidore Duperrey during its circumnavigation of the globe , and the Astrolabe under the command of Jules Dumont d'Urville...

(1790–1869)
Pharmacy-botanist: René Primevère Lesson (1805–1888)
Publications: J. Dumont d'Urville, Voyage of the Astrolabe. (14 volumes, 1830–1835).

1826–1829: Senyavin and Moller

A Russian circumnavigation on the ship Senyavin, sailing from Cronstadt and rounding Cape Horn

Cape Horn

Cape Horn is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island...

accompanied by Capt. Mikhail Nikolaievich Staniukovich in command of the sloop Moller. During the voyage Litke and his team described the western coastline of the Bering Sea

Bering Sea

The Bering Sea is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean. It comprises a deep water basin, which then rises through a narrow slope into the shallower water above the continental shelves....

, the Bonin Islands off Japan

Japan

, and the Carolines

Caroline Islands

The Caroline Islands are a widely scattered archipelago of tiny islands in the western Pacific Ocean, to the north of New Guinea. Politically they are divided between the Federated States of Micronesia in the eastern part of the group, and Palau at the extreme western end...

, discovered 12 new islands. An expedition to strengthen Russian presence near Alaska

Alaska

. A large collection of natural history specimens was made including 1,000 new species

Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

s of insect

Insect

Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...

s, fish

Fish

Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...

, bird

Bird

Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...

s and other animals and 2,500 plant specimens including algae

Algae

Algae are a large and diverse group of simple, typically autotrophic organisms, ranging from unicellular to multicellular forms, such as the giant kelps that grow to 65 meters in length. They are photosynthetic like plants, and "simple" because their tissues are not organized into the many...

and minerals.

Captain: Fyodor Litke (1797–1882)
Botanist-naturalist: Karl Heinrich Mertens
Karl Heinrich Mertens
Karl Heinrich Mertens , was a German botanist and naturalist, and son of the botanist Franz Carl Mertens....

(1796–1830)
Naturalist: Heinrich von Kittlitz
Heinrich von Kittlitz
Friedrich Heinrich Freiherr von Kittlitz was a German artist, naval officer, explorer and naturalist. He was a descendant of a family of old Prussian nobility ....

(1799–1874)
Mineralogist: Alexander Philipov Postels
Alexander Philipov Postels
Alexander Filipov Postels , was a Russian naturalist, mineralogist and artist.Postels studied at St.Petersburg University and in 1826 lectured there on inorganic chemistry....

(1801–1871)
Published by: F. Litke, Trip around the world (1835–1836).

1827–1828: La Chevrette

The first expedition to map the coast of India.

Captain: Theodore Fabré (1795–1830)
Surgeon-naturalist: Auguste Adolphe Marc Reynaud (1804-?)

1829: La Cybèle

Scientific exploration was placed under the direction of Jean-Baptiste Bory de Saint-Vincent (1778–1846).

Captain: Marie Antoine Chevalier de Robillard (1788–1837)
Zoologists: Gaspard Auguste Brullé
Gaspard Auguste Brullé
Gaspard Auguste Brullé was a French entomologist.Passionnate about insects from a young age and through the intervention of Georges Cuvier, he participated in the Morea expedition organised by Jean Baptiste Bory de Saint-Vincent in 1829.In 1832, he participated in the foundation of the Société...

(1809–1873) and Sextius Delaunay
Botanist: Jean-Marie Despréaux (1794–1843)
Geologist: Pierre Théodore Virlet D'Aoust of (1800–1894)
Artist: Prosper Baccuet (1798–1854)

1829–1832: La Favorite

As British, American and Dutch voyages consolidated their interest in Australia, Hawaii

Hawaii

and New Guinea

New Guinea

New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...

, the French government sought to secure the religious freedoms and rights of French residents in the South Pacific. The expedition passed the Cape of good hope

Cape of Good Hope

, stopping at Pondicherry and Madras, and then exploring the coast of Cochinchina

Cochinchina

Cochinchina is a region encompassing the southern third of Vietnam whose principal city is Saigon. It was a French colony from 1862 to 1954. The later state of South Vietnam was created in 1954 by combining Cochinchina with southern Annam. In Vietnamese, the region is called Nam Bộ...

and Tonkin

Tonkin

Tonkin , also spelled Tongkin, Tonquin or Tongking, is the northernmost part of Vietnam, south of China's Yunnan and Guangxi Provinces, east of northern Laos, and west of the Gulf of Tonkin. Locally, it is known as Bắc Kỳ, meaning "Northern Region"...

, stopping in the Philippines

Philippines

, Australia

Australia

, Tasmania

Tasmania

and New Zealand

New Zealand

. The expedition was considered a great success, many hydrological observations were copleted and natural history collections assembled.

Captain: Cyrille Pierre Théodore Laplace (1793–1875)
Naturalist: Joseph Fortuné Théodore Eydoux
Joseph Fortuné Théodore Eydoux
Joseph Fortuné Théodore Eydoux Joseph Fortuné Théodore Eydoux Joseph Fortuné Théodore Eydoux (1802 - 1841 was a French naturalist.Eydoux and Louis François Auguste Souleyet were surgeon naturalists on the expedition ship "La Favorite" which made a circumnavigation in 1830-32 captained by Cyrille...

(1802–1841)
Publication: C.P.T. Laplace, Journey around the world by the India and China seas, running on the corvette of the State the Favorite during the 1830s, 1831 and 1832 under the command of Mr Laplace captain of frégatte. Published by order of Mr. Vice-Admiral comte Rigny Minister of marine and colonies. (seven volumes including two atlas, Paris, 1833–1839).

1831–1836: HMS Beagle
HMS Beagle
HMS Beagle was a Cherokee-class 10-gun brig-sloop of the Royal Navy. She was launched on 11 May 1820 from the Woolwich Dockyard on the River Thames, at a cost of £7,803. In July of that year she took part in a fleet review celebrating the coronation of King George IV of the United Kingdom in which...

A world circumnavigation to make a hydrographic survey

Hydrographic survey

Hydrographic survey is the science of measurement and description of features which affect maritime navigation, marine construction, dredging, offshore oil exploration/drilling and related disciplines. Strong emphasis is placed on soundings, shorelines, tides, currents, sea floor and submerged...

of the coast of Patagonia

Patagonia

, Tierra del Fuego

Tierra del Fuego

, Chile

Chile

Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

and Peru

Peru

Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....

, and establish accurate longitude

Longitude

Longitude is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east-west position of a point on the Earth's surface. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees, minutes and seconds, and denoted by the Greek letter lambda ....

measurements. Charles Darwin paid his own way as a naturalist, and found the voyage a stimulus both to his career as a geologist and to the formulation of his theory of evolution

Evolution

Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...

Captain: Robert FitzRoy
Robert FitzRoy
Vice-Admiral Robert FitzRoy RN achieved lasting fame as the captain of HMS Beagle during Charles Darwin's famous voyage, and as a pioneering meteorologist who made accurate weather forecasting a reality...

(1805–1865)
Physician-naturalist: Robert McCormick
Robert McCormick (explorer)
Robert McCormick was a British Royal Navy surgeon, explorer and naturalist.McCormick was born in Great Yarmouth, England...

(1800–1890) until April 1832, followed by Benjamin Bynoe (1804–1865)
Naturalist (passenger): Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...

(1809–1882)
Artist: Augustus Earle
Augustus Earle
Augustus Earle was a London-born travel artist. Unlike earlier artists who worked outside Europe and were employed on voyages of exploration or worked abroad for wealthy, often aristocratic patrons, Earle was able to operate quite independently - able to combine his lust for travel with an...

, remplacer for Conrad Martens
Conrad Martens
Conrad Martens was an English-born landscape painter active in Australia from 1835.-Life and work:Conrad Martens' father was a merchant who came originally to London as Austrian Consul; Conrad was born in "Crutched Friars" near Tower Hill...
Publications: C. Darwin (editor), Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle
Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle
The Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle Under the Command of Captain Fitzroy, R.N., during the Years 1832 to 1836 is a 5-part book published unbound in nineteen numbers as they were ready, between February 1838 and October 1843...

. (five volumes, 1838–1843),
R. FitzRoy, Narrative of the surveying voyages of His Majesty's Ships Adventure and Beagle between the years 1826 and 1836, describing their examination of the southern shores of South America, and the Beagle's circumnavigation of the globe. Proceedings of the second expedition, 1831-36, under the command of Captain Robert Fitz-Roy, R.N. (volume 2 and appendix, with volume 3 by C. Darwin, Journal and Remarks
The Voyage of the Beagle
The Voyage of the Beagle is a title commonly given to the book written by Charles Darwin and published in 1839 as his Journal and Remarks, bringing him considerable fame and respect...

, 1839)
C. Darwin, Geology of The Voyage of The Beagle (three volumes, The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs
The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs
The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs, Being the first part of the geology of the voyage of the Beagle, under the command of Capt. Fitzroy, R.N. during the years 1832 to 1836, was published in 1842 as Charles Darwin's first monograph, and set out his theory of the formation of coral reefs...

(1842), Geological Observations of Volcanic Islands (1844), Geological Observations on South America (1846).)

1835 and 1836: La Recherche
French ship Recherche (1787)
The Recherche was a 20-gun Marsouin class scow of the French Navy, later reclassified as a 12-gun frigate. She earned fame as one of the ships of Bruni d'Entrecasteaux' expedition, along with Espérance...

Two expeditions to the coasts of Iceland

Iceland

and Greenland

Greenland

Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...

in an attempt to trace the Bordelaise commanded by Jules de Blosseville

Jules de Blosseville

Jules-Alphonse-René Poret baron de Blosseville was a French naval officer, geographer and explorer....

(1802–1833) which had been missing since 1833.

Captain François Thomas Tréhouart
François Thomas Tréhouart
François Thomas Tréhouart was a French admiral, notable as the last holder to date of the rank of Admiral of France, to which he was appointed on 20 February 1869. He was a recipient of the grand cross of the Order of Isabella II.He first saw action at in 1827, then at the blockade of the Rio de...

(1798–1873)
Physician-naturalist: Joseph Paul Gaimard
Joseph Paul Gaimard
Joseph Paul Gaimard was a French naval surgeon and naturalist.Along with Jean René Constant Quoy he served as naturalist on the ships L'Uranie under Louis de Freycinet 1817-1820, and L'Astrolabe under Jules Dumont d'Urville 1826-1829...

(1796–1858) assisted by Elie Jean-François Le Guillou (1806 – after 1860) (first voyage) and by Charles René Augustin Léclancher (1804–1857) (second voyage), Louis Eugène Robert

1836–1839: Venus
French frigate Vénus (1808)
The Vénus was a Junon class frigate of the French Navy.On 10 November 1808, she departed Cherbourg, bound for Île de France, where she served as Hamelin's flagship, leading a squadron also comprising the frigate Manche and the sloop Créole....

Expedition (circumnavigation) to assess the economic viability of whaling in the North Pacific.

Captain: Abel Aubert De Petit-Thouars (1793–1864)
Engineer hydrographer: Urbain Dortet de Tessan (1804–1879)
Physician-naturalist: Adolphe Simon Neboux (1806–1844)
Surgeon: Charles René Augustin Léclancher (1804–1857)
Publication: A.A. Petit-Thouars, Travel around the world on the fragate Venus. (eleven volumes, 1840–1864).

1836–1837: La Bonite

A global circumnavigation sailing the coast of South America

South America

, back along the West Coast to California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

, across the Pacific, reaching Manila

Manila

Manila is the capital of the Philippines. It is one of the sixteen cities forming Metro Manila.Manila is located on the eastern shores of Manila Bay and is bordered by Navotas and Caloocan to the north, Quezon City to the northeast, San Juan and Mandaluyong to the east, Makati on the southeast,...

, China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

, India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

, the Isla Borbón

Pebble Island

Pebble Island is one of the Falkland Islands, lying north of West Falkland.The island stretches about 19 miles from east to west and is about 4.3 miles at its widest point, with a total area of square miles .It has three high points: First Mountain , Middle Mountain and...

and returning to France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

. More than 1,000 new plant species

Species

were collected and many geographical and meteorological observations made.

Captain: Auguste-Nicolas Vaillant (1793–1858)
Physician-naturalist: Joseph Fortuné Théodore Eydoux
Joseph Fortuné Théodore Eydoux
Joseph Fortuné Théodore Eydoux Joseph Fortuné Théodore Eydoux Joseph Fortuné Théodore Eydoux (1802 - 1841 was a French naturalist.Eydoux and Louis François Auguste Souleyet were surgeon naturalists on the expedition ship "La Favorite" which made a circumnavigation in 1830-32 captained by Cyrille...

(1803–1841) and Louis François Auguste Souleyet
Louis François Auguste Souleyet
Louis François Auguste Souleyet was a French zoologist, malacologist and naval surgeon.Souleyet was naturalist-surgeon on the voyage of La Bonite, which circumnavigated the globe between February 1836 and November 1837 under Auguste Nicolas Vaillant . In the Pacific he studied marine molluscs...

(1811–1852)
Hydrographer: Benoît Henry Darondeau (1805–1869)
Pharmacy-botanist: Charles Gaudichaud-Beaupré
Charles Gaudichaud-Beaupré
Charles Gaudichaud-Beaupré was a French botanist.He was born in Angoulême, the son of J-J. Gaudichaud and Rose Gaudichaud. He studied pharmacology at Cognac and Angoulême. He also studied chemistry and herbology.His greatest claim to fame was serving as botanist on a circumglobal expedition from...

(1789–1854)
Publication: A. N. Vaillant, Trip around the world executed during the years 1836 and 1837 on the corvette Bonito ... (eleven volumes, Paris, 1841–1852).

1836–1842: HMS Sulphur

Exploration of the Pacific coast of America

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

and interior of Nicaragua

Nicaragua

Nicaragua is the largest country in the Central American American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean...

and El Salvador

El Salvador

El Salvador or simply Salvador is the smallest and the most densely populated country in Central America. The country's capital city and largest city is San Salvador; Santa Ana and San Miguel are also important cultural and commercial centers in the country and in all of Central America...

. The ship participated in the First Opium War

First Opium War

The First Anglo-Chinese War , known popularly as the First Opium War or simply the Opium War, was fought between the United Kingdom and the Qing Dynasty of China over their conflicting viewpoints on diplomatic relations, trade, and the administration of justice...

between 1840 and 1841 and was later used to survey the harbour of Hong Kong

Hong Kong

Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

in 1841, returning to England in 1842.

Captain: Edward Belcher
Edward Belcher
Admiral Sir Edward Belcher, KCB , was a British naval officer and explorer. He was the great-grandson of Governor Jonathan Belcher. His wife, Diana Jolliffe, was the stepdaughter of Captain Peter Heywood.-Early life:...

(1799–1877)
Physician-naturalist: Richard Brinsley Hinds (1811–1846)
Publications: E. Belcher, Narrative of a Voyage Round the World in HMS Sulphur. (two volumes, 1843); R.B. Hinds (editor), "The Zoology of the Voyage of HMS Sulphur" (two volumes, 1843–1844).

1837–1840: L'Astrolabe
French ship Astrolabe (1781)
The Astrolabe was a converted fluyt of the French Navy, famous for her travels with Jean-François de Galaup, comte de La Pérouse.She departed Brest on 1 August 1785 under Paul Antoine Fleuriot de Langle, along with the Boussole under La Pérouse....

and La Zélée

The second voyage of the Astrolabe, this time accompanied by the Zélée sailed on 7 September 1837and at the end of November, the ships reached the Strait of Magellan. Dumont thought there was sufficient time to explore the strait for three weeks, taking into account the precise maps drawn by Phillip Parker King in the HMS Beagle

HMS Beagle

HMS Beagle was a Cherokee-class 10-gun brig-sloop of the Royal Navy. She was launched on 11 May 1820 from the Woolwich Dockyard on the River Thames, at a cost of £7,803. In July of that year she took part in a fleet review celebrating the coronation of King George IV of the United Kingdom in which...

between 1826 and 1830, before heading south again but two weeks after seeing their first iceberg

Iceberg

An iceberg is a large piece of ice from freshwater that has broken off from a snow-formed glacier or ice shelf and is floating in open water. It may subsequently become frozen into pack ice...

, the ships were encased in pack ice for a while. After reaching the South Orkney Islands

South Orkney Islands

The South Orkney Islands are a group of islands in the Southern Ocean, about north-east of the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. They have a total area of about ....

, the expedition headed directly to the South Shetland Islands and the Bransfield Strait

Bransfield Strait

Bransfield Strait is a body of water about wide extending for in a general northeast-southwest direction between the South Shetland Islands and Antarctic Peninsula. It was named in about 1825 by James Weddell, Master, Royal Navy, for Edward Bransfield, Master, RN, who charted the South Shetland...

. Then located some land which was named Terre de Louis-Philippe (now called Graham Land

Graham Land

Graham Land is that portion of the Antarctic Peninsula which lies north of a line joining Cape Jeremy and Cape Agassiz. This description of Graham Land is consistent with the 1964 agreement between the British Antarctic Place-names Committee and the US Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names, in...

), the Joinville Island group

Joinville Island group

Joinville Island group is a group of antarctic islands, lying off the northeastern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, from which Joinville Island group is separated by the Antarctic Sound. Joinville Island, being located at , is the largest island of the Joinville Island group...

and Rosamel Island (now called Andersson Island

Andersson Island

Andersson Island, once known as Rosamel Island, is an island located at the eastern end of the Tabarin Peninsula, Antarctica.The island was first named by the French Antarctic Expedition in 1838, who called it le Rosamel in honor of Vice Admiral Claude Charles Marie du Campe de Rosamel, French...

. In poor shape the two ships headed for Talcahuano

Talcahuano

Talcahuano is a port city and commune in the Biobío Region of Chile. It is part of the Greater Concepción conurbation. Talcahuano is located in the south of the Central Zone of Chile.-Geography:...

in Chile.

Captains: Jules Dumont d'Urville
Jules Dumont d'Urville
Jules Sébastien César Dumont d'Urville was a French explorer, naval officer and rear admiral, who explored the south and western Pacific, Australia, New Zealand and Antarctica.-Childhood:Dumont was born at Condé-sur-Noireau...

(1790–1842) (L'Astrolabe), Charles Hector Jacquinot (1796–1879) (La Zélée)
Physician-naturalist: on "The Astrolabe", Jacques Bernard Hombron
Jacques Bernard Hombron
Doctor Jacques Bernard Hombron was a French naval surgeon and naturalist.Hombron served on the French voyage of the Astrolabe and Zelee between 1837 and 1840 to investigate the perimeter of Antarctica. He described a number of plants and animals with Honoré Jacquinot.-See also:* European and...

(1798–1852) surgeon-major of 2nd class and Louis Le Breton
Louis Le Breton
Louis Le Breton was a French painter who specialised in marine paintings.Le Breton studied medicine and took part in Dumont d'Urville's second voyage aboard the Astrolabe...

(1818–1866) surgeon 3rd class and "La Zélée" Honoré Jacquinot
Honoré Jacquinot
Honoré Jacquinot was a French surgeon and zoologist. Jacquinot was the younger brother of the naval officer Charles Hector Jacquinot, and sailed with him as a naturalist on La Zelee on Dumont d'Urville's Astrolabe expedition . With J. B...

(1815–1887) 3rd class surgeon, Elie Jean François Le Guillou (1806 - after 1860) surgeon, 3rd class
Preparer-naturalist: Pierre Marie Alexandre Dumoutier (1797–1871)
Illustrator: Ernest Goupil (1814–1840) (replaced on his death on 01/4/1840 to Hobart-Town by Louis Le Breton
Louis Le Breton
Louis Le Breton was a French painter who specialised in marine paintings.Le Breton studied medicine and took part in Dumont d'Urville's second voyage aboard the Astrolabe...

surgeon, 3rd class)
Hydrographer-cartographer: Clement Adrien Vincendon - Dumoulin (1811–1858)
Publications: J. Dumont d'Urville and Clement Adrien Vincendon-Dumoulin assisted Desgraz Secretary of L'Astrolabe tome 1,tome 2, tome 3, tome 4, tome 5, volume 6, tome 7, tome 8, tome 9, tome 10.

1837–1843: HMS Beagle
HMS Beagle
HMS Beagle was a Cherokee-class 10-gun brig-sloop of the Royal Navy. She was launched on 11 May 1820 from the Woolwich Dockyard on the River Thames, at a cost of £7,803. In July of that year she took part in a fleet review celebrating the coronation of King George IV of the United Kingdom in which...

The mission was the hydrographic

Hydrography

survey of the coasts of Australia

Australia

. In 1839 Lieutenant Stokes sighted a natural harbour which Wickham named Port Darwin, the later settlement nearby eventually became the city of Darwin, Northern Territory

Darwin, Northern Territory

Darwin is the capital city of the Northern Territory, Australia. Situated on the Timor Sea, Darwin has a population of 127,500, making it by far the largest and most populated city in the sparsely populated Northern Territory, but the least populous of all Australia's capital cities...

. In 1841 Wickham fell ill, and Stokes took command.

Captain: John Clements Wickham
John Clements Wickham
John Clements Wickham was a naval officer, magistrate and administrator. He was a Lieutenant on HMS Beagle during her second survey mission from 1831 to 1836, which took the young naturalist Charles Darwin on what became the subject of his book, The Voyage of the Beagle...

(1798–1864), succeeded by John Lort Stokes
John Lort Stokes
Admiral John Lort Stokes, RN was an officer in the Royal Navy who travelled on HMS Beagle for close to eighteen years.Stokes grew up in Scotchwell near Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire. He joined the Navy on 20 September 1824...

(1812–1885)
Physician-naturalist: Benjamin Bynoe (1804–1865)
Publication: J. L . Stokes, Discoveries in Australia, With an Account of the Coasts and Rivers Explored and Surveyed During The Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, in the Years 1837-38-39-40-41-42-43. By Command of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. Also a Narrative of Captain Owen Stanley's Visits to the Islands in the Arafura Sea. Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 (London, 1846)

1838–1842: USS Vincennes
USS Vincennes (1826)
USS Vincennes was a 703-ton Boston-class sloop of war in the United States Navy from 1826 to 1865. During her service, Vincennes patrolled the Pacific, explored the Antarctic, and blockaded the Confederate Gulf coast in the Civil War. Named for the Revolutionary War Battle of Vincennes, she was...

and USS Peacock

The "Wilkes Expedition", included naturalist

Natural history

s, botanists, a mineralogist, taxidermists, artist

Artist

An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...

s and a philologist in the ships USS Vincennes

USS Vincennes (1826)

USS Vincennes was a 703-ton Boston-class sloop of war in the United States Navy from 1826 to 1865. During her service, Vincennes patrolled the Pacific, explored the Antarctic, and blockaded the Confederate Gulf coast in the Civil War. Named for the Revolutionary War Battle of Vincennes, she was...

, Peacock, the brig

Brig

A brig is a sailing vessel with two square-rigged masts. During the Age of Sail, brigs were seen as fast and manoeuvrable and were used as both naval warships and merchant vessels. They were especially popular in the 18th and early 19th centuries...

Porpoise

USS Porpoise (1836)

The second USS Porpoise was a 224-ton Dolphin class brigantine The USS Porpoise was later rerigged as a brig...

, the store-ship Relief

USS Relief (1836)

The first USS Relief was a supply ship in the United States Navy.Relief was laid down in 1835 at the Philadelphia Navy Yard and launched on 14 September 1836. Designed by Samuel Humphreys, she was built along merchant vessel lines and included trysail mast and gaffsail on all three masts to enable...

, and two schooner

Schooner

A schooner is a type of sailing vessel characterized by the use of fore-and-aft sails on two or more masts with the forward mast being no taller than the rear masts....

s, Sea Gull

USS Sea Gull (1838)

USS Sea Gull was a schooner in the service of the United States Navy. The Sea Gull was one of six ships that sailed in the US Exploring Expedition in 1838 to survey the coast of the then-unknown continent of Antarctica and the Pacific Islands...

, and Flying Fish

USS Flying Fish (1838)

USS Flying Fish , a schooner, was formerly the New York City pilot boat Independence. Purchased by the United States Navy at New York City on 3 August 1838 and upon joining her squadron in Hampton Roads 12 August 1838 was placed under command of Passed Midshipman S. R. Knox.Assigned as a tender in...

.

Departing Hampton Roads

Hampton Roads

Hampton Roads is the name for both a body of water and the Norfolk–Virginia Beach metropolitan area which surrounds it in southeastern Virginia, United States...

on 18 August 18, 1838, the expedition stopped at the Madeira Islands and Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro

, Argentina; visited Tierra del Fuego

Tierra del Fuego

, Chile

Chile

, Peru

Peru

, the Tuamotu Archipelago, Samoa

Samoa

, and New South Wales

New South Wales

New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...

. From Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

, Australia, the fleet sailed into the Antarctic Ocean in December 1839 and reported the discovery "of an Antarctic continent west of the Balleny Islands

Balleny Islands

The Balleny Islands are a series of uninhabited islands in the Southern Ocean extending from 66°15' to 67°35'S and 162°30' to 165°00'E. The group extends for about in a northwest-southeast direction. The islands are heavily glaciated and are of volcanic origin. Glaciers project from their slopes...

". Next, the expedition visited Fiji

Fiji

Fiji , officially the Republic of Fiji , is an island nation in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about northeast of New Zealand's North Island...

and the Hawaiian Islands

Hawaiian Islands

The Hawaiian Islands are an archipelago of eight major islands, several atolls, numerous smaller islets, and undersea seamounts in the North Pacific Ocean, extending some 1,500 miles from the island of Hawaii in the south to northernmost Kure Atoll...

in 1840. In July 1840, two sailors, one of whom was Wilkes' nephew, Midshipman Wilkes Henry, were killed while bartering for food on Fiji

Fiji

Fiji , officially the Republic of Fiji , is an island nation in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about northeast of New Zealand's North Island...

's Malolo Island. Wilkes retribution was swift and severe. According to an old man of Malolo Island, nearly 80 Fijians were killed in the incident.

From December 1840 to March 1841, his men with native Hawaiian porters hauled a pendulum

Pendulum

A pendulum is a weight suspended from a pivot so that it can swing freely. When a pendulum is displaced from its resting equilibrium position, it is subject to a restoring force due to gravity that will accelerate it back toward the equilibrium position...

to the summit of Mauna Loa

Mauna Loa

Mauna Loa is one of five volcanoes that form the Island of Hawaii in the U.S. state of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean, and the largest on Earth in terms of volume and area covered. It is an active shield volcano, with a volume estimated at approximately , although its peak is about lower than that...

to measure gravity. He explored the west coast of North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

, including the Strait of Juan de Fuca

Strait of Juan de Fuca

The Strait of Juan de Fuca is a large body of water about long that is the Salish Sea outlet to the Pacific Ocean...

, Puget Sound

Puget Sound

Puget Sound is a sound in the U.S. state of Washington. It is a complex estuarine system of interconnected marine waterways and basins, with one major and one minor connection to the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Pacific Ocean — Admiralty Inlet being the major connection and...

, the Columbia River

Columbia River

The Columbia River is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, Canada, flows northwest and then south into the U.S. state of Washington, then turns west to form most of the border between Washington and the state...

, San Francisco Bay

San Francisco Bay

San Francisco Bay is a shallow, productive estuary through which water draining from approximately forty percent of California, flowing in the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers from the Sierra Nevada mountains, enters the Pacific Ocean...

and the Sacramento River

Sacramento River

The Sacramento River is an important watercourse of Northern and Central California in the United States. The largest river in California, it rises on the eastern slopes of the Klamath Mountains, and after a journey south of over , empties into Suisun Bay, an arm of the San Francisco Bay, and...

, in 1841.
The expedition returned by way of the Philippines

Philippines

, the Sulu Archipelago

Sulu Archipelago

The Sulu Archipelago is a chain of islands in the southwestern Philippines. This archipelago is considered to be part of the Moroland by the local rebel independence movement. This island group forms the northern limit of the Celebes Sea....

, Borneo

Borneo

Borneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java Island, Indonesia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia....

, Singapore

Singapore

Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

, Polynesia

Polynesia

Polynesia is a subregion of Oceania, made up of over 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean. The indigenous people who inhabit the islands of Polynesia are termed Polynesians and they share many similar traits including language, culture and beliefs...

and the Cape of Good Hope

Cape of Good Hope

, reaching New York on 10 June 1842. This was the first circumnavigation of the world funded by the Government of the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

and the last by a sailing vessel. The expedition was poorly prepared and of five vessels which left, only two returned to port. The natural history collections were very rich with 50,000 plant specimens (approximately 10 & nbsp; 000 species) and 4,000 specimens of animals (half being new species).

Captains: Charles Wilkes
Charles Wilkes
Charles Wilkes was an American naval officer and explorer. He led the United States Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842 and commanded the ship in the Trent Affair during the American Civil War...

(1798–1877) (USS Vincennes) and William Levereth Hudson (USS Peacock) (1794–1862)
Doctor-tries: J.L. Fox
Naturalists: Charles Pickering
Charles Pickering (naturalist)
Charles Pickering was an American naturalist.Born in Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, the grandson of Colonel Timothy Pickering, he grew up in Wenham, Massachusetts and received a medical degree from Harvard University in 1823...

(1805–1878), Titian Ramsay Peale (1799–1885), James Dwight Dana
James Dwight Dana
James Dwight Dana was an American geologist, mineralogist and zoologist. He made pioneering studies of mountain-building, volcanic activity, and the origin and structure of continents and oceans around the world.-Early life and career:...

(1813–1895), William Dunlop Brackenridge
William Dunlop Brackenridge
William Dunlop Brackenridge was a Scottish nurseryman and botanist.Brackenridge emigrated to Philadelphia in 1837, where he was employed by Robert Buist, nurseryman. He was appointed horticulturalist, then assistant botanist, for the United States Exploring Expedition from 1838-1842...

(1810–1893)
Publication: V. Wilkes, Narrative of the United States exploring Expedition. (twenty volumes, 1845–1876)

1839–1843: HMS Erebus
HMS Erebus (1826)
HMS Erebus was a Hecla-class bomb vessel designed by Sir Henry Peake and constructed by the Royal Navy in Pembroke dockyard, Wales in 1826. The vessel was named after the dark region in Hades of Greek mythology called Erebus...

and HMS Terror
HMS Terror (1813)
HMS Terror was a bomb vessel designed by Sir Henry Peake and constructed by the Royal Navy in the Davy shipyard in Topsham, Devon. The ship, variously listed as being of either 326 or 340 tons, carried two mortars, one and one .-War service:...

This British trip, sponsored by the Royal Society

Royal Society

, was to discover magnetic and geographic features of the Antarctic

Antarctic

. The expedition was prepared with great care by James Clark Ross, already familiar with Polar navigation. The two ships left the United Kingdom on 19 September 1839, stopping to explore the Kerguelen Islands

Kerguelen Islands

The Kerguelen Islands , also known as the Desolation Islands, are a group of islands in the southern Indian Ocean constituting the emerged part of the otherwise submerged Kerguelen Plateau. The islands, along with Adélie Land, the Crozet Islands and the Amsterdam and Saint Paul Islands are part of...

in 1840, and then on Tasmania

Tasmania

to build a magnetic observatory for the Antarctic and to conduct cartographic work. The mount Erebus

Mount Erebus

Mount Erebus in Antarctica is the southernmost historically active volcano on Earth, the second highest volcano in Antarctica , and the 6th highest ultra mountain on an island. With a summit elevation of , it is located on Ross Island, which is also home to three inactive volcanoes, notably Mount...

, Ross Sea

Ross Sea

The Ross Sea is a deep bay of the Southern Ocean in Antarctica between Victoria Land and Marie Byrd Land.-Description:The Ross Sea was discovered by James Ross in 1841. In the west of the Ross Sea is Ross Island with the Mt. Erebus volcano, in the east Roosevelt Island. The southern part is covered...

were discovered during this journey. After three attempts, Ross admitted that the magnetic pole

South Magnetic Pole

The Earth's South Magnetic Pole is the wandering point on the Earth's surface where the geomagnetic field lines are directed vertically upwards...

lay in land that he could not reach. Following the footsteps of his uncle John Ross

John Ross (explorer)

John Ross was a Scottish Australian drover and explorer.Ross was born in Bridgend, Scotland. He emigrated to Australia in 1837, arriving in Sydney on 31 August 1837. He first gained employment as a shepherd for George Macleay and in 1838 he joined Charles Bonney in the first cattle drive from the...

, he performed the first deep sea surveys up to 4800 m (2677 fathom

Fathom

A fathom is a unit of length in the imperial and the U.S. customary systems, used especially for measuring the depth of water.There are 2 yards in an imperial or U.S. fathom...

s), using ropes. Unfortunately biological specimens collected decomposed.

Captains: Sir James Clark Ross
James Clark Ross
Sir James Clark Ross , was a British naval officer and explorer. He explored the Arctic with his uncle Sir John Ross and Sir William Parry, and later led his own expedition to Antarctica.-Arctic explorer:...

(1800–1862) (Erebus) and Francis Crozier
Francis Crozier
Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier was born in Ireland at Banbridge, County Down and was a British naval officer who participated in six exploratory expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic...

(1796–1848) (Terror)
Physician-naturalist: Robert McCormick
Robert McCormick (explorer)
Robert McCormick was a British Royal Navy surgeon, explorer and naturalist.McCormick was born in Great Yarmouth, England...

(1800–1890), Joseph Hooker
Joseph Dalton Hooker
Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker OM, GCSI, CB, MD, FRS was one of the greatest British botanists and explorers of the 19th century. Hooker was a founder of geographical botany, and Charles Darwin's closest friend...

(1817–1911), John Robertson, David Lyall (1817–1895)
Publications: J.C. Ross, A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions. (1847), J.E. Gray and John Richardson, The zoology of the Voyage of HM Ships Erebus and Terror (1844–1875)

1841–1844: La Favorite

A scientific exploration in the China Sea and Indian Ocean.

Captain: Théogène François Page (1807–1867)
Surgeon-naturalist: Charles René Augustin Léclancher (1804–1857)

1842–1846: HMS Fly
HMS Fly (1831)
HMS Fly was an 18-gun sloop of the Royal Navy. She was responsible for the exploration and charting of much of Australia's north-east coast and nearby islands. She was converted to a coal hulk in 1855 and broken up in 1903.-Design and construction:...

During the early-to-mid 1840s, HMS Fly charted numerous trade and other routes between many locations, primarily off Australia's North-east coast and nearby islands. Such islands included Whitsunday Island

Whitsunday Island

Whitsunday Island is the largest island in the Whitsunday group of islands located off the coast of Central Queensland, Australia. Whitsunday Island is located at...

and the Capricorn Islands. After being discovered during the survey of the Gulf of Papua

Gulf of Papua

The Gulf of Papua is a 400 kilometer wide region on the south shore of New Guinea. Some of New Guinea's largest rivers, such as the Fly River, Turama River, Kikori River and Purari River, flow into the gulf, making it a large delta. While the western coast is characterized by swampy tidal...

, New Guinea

New Guinea

, the Fly River

Fly River

The Fly at , is the second longest river, after the Sepik, in Papua New Guinea. The Fly is the largest river in Oceania, the largest in the world without a single dam in its catchment, and overall ranks as the twenty-fifth largest river in the world by volume of discharge...

was named after the Fly. For the most of its seaworthy existence, the Fly was captained by Francis Price Blackwood.

Captain: Francis Price Blackwood
Francis Price Blackwood
Francis Price Blackwood was a British naval officer who while posted at several different locations during his time in the Royal Navy, spent much of his time posted in colonial Australia and was an instrumental pioneer of regions near Australia's east coast and nearby islands.Born as the second...

(1809–1854)
Physician-naturalist: Benjamin Bynoe (1804–1865)
Naturalists: Joseph Beete Jukes (1811–1869) and John MacGillivray
John MacGillivray
John MacGillivray was a Scottish-naturalist, active in Australia between 1842 and 1867.MacGillivray was born in Aberdeen, the son of ornithologist William MacGillivray. He took part in three of the Royal Navy's surveying voyages in the Pacific...

(1821–1867)
Publication: J.B. Jukes, "Narrative of the surveying voyage of h. M. s. ″Fly″, commanded by captain f. P. Blackwood,... in Torres Strait, New Guinea and other islands of the Eastern Archipelago, during the years 1842–1846, together with an excursion into the interior of the Eastern part of Java" (two volumes, 1847).

1846–1850: HMS Rattlesnake
HMS Rattlesnake (1822)
HMS Rattlesnake was an Atholl-class 28-gun sixth-rate corvette of the Royal Navy launched in 1822. She made a historic voyage of discovery to the Cape York and Torres Strait areas of northern Australia.-Construction:...

and HMS Bramble
HMS Bramble (1822)
HMS Bramble was a 161-ton, 10-gun cutter launched on 8 April 1822 from Plymouth Dockyard.Between April 1842 to April 1847, under the command of Lieutenant Charles Bampfield Yule as a tender to HMS Fly in the East Indies Station she undertook surveys around Australia...

An expedition to the Cape York

Cape York Peninsula

Cape York Peninsula is a large remote peninsula located in Far North Queensland at the tip of the state of Queensland, Australia, the largest unspoilt wilderness in northern Australia and one of the last remaining wilderness areas on Earth...

and Torres Strait

Torres Strait

The Torres Strait is a body of water which lies between Australia and the Melanesian island of New Guinea. It is approximately wide at its narrowest extent. To the south is Cape York Peninsula, the northernmost continental extremity of the Australian state of Queensland...

areas of northern Australia.

Captain: Owen Stanley
Owen Stanley
Captain Owen Stanley FRS RN was a British Royal Navy officer and surveyor.-Life:Stanley was born in Alderley, Cheshire the son of Edward Stanley, rector of Alderley and later Bishop of Norwich...

(1811–1850) (Rattlesnake) and Charles Bampfield Yule
Charles Bampfield Yule
Captain Charles Bampfield Yule, R.N. was an explorer and author of the Admiralty Australia Directory....

(Bramble)
Surgeon: John Thomson
Physician-naturalist: Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895)
Naturalists: John MacGillivray
John MacGillivray
John MacGillivray was a Scottish-naturalist, active in Australia between 1842 and 1867.MacGillivray was born in Aberdeen, the son of ornithologist William MacGillivray. He took part in three of the Royal Navy's surveying voyages in the Pacific...

(1821–1867) and James Fowler Wilcox (1823–1881)
Artist: Oswald Brierly (1817–1894)
Publication: J. MacGillivray, Narrative of the Voyage of HMS Rattlesnake. (1852). Goodman, J. The Rattlesnake: A Voyage of Discovery to the Coral Sea. London: Faber & Faber, ISBN 9780571210787 (2006). Goodman, J. Losing it in New Guinea: the voyage of HMS Rattlesnake. Endeavour (Elsevier) 29 (2): 60–65, doi:10.1016/j.endeavour.2005.04.005, PMID 15935857 (2005)

1851–1854: Capricieuse

A French expedition circumnavigating the world via Cape Horn, stopping in Tahiti and Ualan to determine an astronomical Meridian intended for future travel in the Pacific, then arriving in China. There, the ship performed several missions of exploration including, in July–August 1852, in the seas of Korea and Japan (then very little known in Europe) and on the coasts of Kamchatkato completely unknown the Lapérouse expedition. The Capricieuse then returned to France via the Cape of Good Hope. This was the last French global circumnavigation by sail.

Commander: Commander Gaston de Rocquemaurel (1804–1878)
Second: Navy lieutenant Jules Duroch
Publication: The narrative of the voyage remained unpublished.

1851–1853: Eugenie

A Swedish natural history excursion, contributing to the capture of Manuel Briones, a robber who seized an American whaler "George Howland" and who was the terror on the coast of the Ecuador

Ecuador

Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...

Captain: Christian Adolf Virgin (1797–1870).
Physician-naturalist: Johan Gustaf Hjalmar Kinberg (1820–1908)
Naturalist: Nils Johan Andersson
Nils Johan Andersson
Nils Johan Andersson , was a Swedish botanist and traveller. This botanist is denoted by the author abbreviation N.J.Andersson when citing a botanical name....

(1821–1880)
Publication: N.J. Andersson, Fregatten "Eugenies" resa omkring jorden åren 1851–1853, under befäl af utgifven af, v. a. Virgin v. Skogman ... (Stockholm, 1856).

1852–1863: HMS Herald
HMS Herald (1822)
HMS Herald was an Atholl-class 28-gun sixth-rate corvette of the Royal Navy. She was launched in 1821 as HMS Termagant, commissioned in 1824 as Herald and converted to a survey ship in 1845...

A survey of the Australia

Australia

n coast and Fiji

Fiji

Fiji , officially the Republic of Fiji , is an island nation in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about northeast of New Zealand's North Island...

Islands, continuing the mission of HMS Rattlesnake

HMS Rattlesnake

Nine ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Rattlesnake, including:, a 10 gun cutter launched 1777. Lost 1782, ex Cormorant of 1781. A 12 gun brig. Sold 1786, a 16-gun sloop in service from 1791, a 28-gun frigate launched in 1822, a torpedo gunboat in service from 1886 to 1910* HMS...

. Following disagreements with the captain, naturalist John MacGillivray

John MacGillivray

John MacGillivray was a Scottish-naturalist, active in Australia between 1842 and 1867.MacGillivray was born in Aberdeen, the son of ornithologist William MacGillivray. He took part in three of the Royal Navy's surveying voyages in the Pacific...

disembarks at Sydney in January 1854. HMS Herald

HMS Herald (1822)

HMS Herald was an Atholl-class 28-gun sixth-rate corvette of the Royal Navy. She was launched in 1821 as HMS Termagant, commissioned in 1824 as Herald and converted to a survey ship in 1845...

was a 500-ton, 28-gun sixth-rate, launched as Termagant

HMS Termagant

Seven ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Termagant, after Termagant, a god that Medieval Europeans believed Muslims worshipped, and that later came to be popularised by Shakespeare to mean a bullying person:...

in 1822 and renamed in 1824. She served as a survey ship under Henry Kellett

Henry Kellett

Vice Admiral Sir Henry Kellett KCB was a British naval officer and explorer.-Naval career:Kellett joined the Royal Navy in 1822...

and Henry Mangles Denham

Henry Mangles Denham

Vice Admiral Sir Henry Mangles Denham, CMG was a Royal Navy officer who went on to be Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Station.-Early career:...

and was sold in 1864.

Captain: Henry Mangles Denham
Henry Mangles Denham
Vice Admiral Sir Henry Mangles Denham, CMG was a Royal Navy officer who went on to be Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Station.-Early career:...

(1800–1887)
Naturalists: John MacGillivray
John MacGillivray
John MacGillivray was a Scottish-naturalist, active in Australia between 1842 and 1867.MacGillivray was born in Aberdeen, the son of ornithologist William MacGillivray. He took part in three of the Royal Navy's surveying voyages in the Pacific...

(1821–1867), William Milne
William Grant Milne
William Grant Milne , was a Scottish botanist.A gardener at the Edinburgh Botanic Garden, Milne joined the HMS Herald expedition to the southwestern Pacific as a botanist. The expedition visited, inter alia, Lord Howe Island, New South Wales and Western Australia...

(botanist) and Denis Macdonald
John Denis Macdonald
Sir John Denis Macdonald was a surgeon and fellow of the Royal Society of London.Born in Cork, County Cork, Ireland, Macdonald served as an assistant surgeon in the Royal Navy. In later life he researched in the fields of zoology and natural history...

as Assistant Surgeon-zoologist.
Publication: Edward Forbes
Edward Forbes
Professor Edward Forbes FRS, FGS was a Manx naturalist.-Early years:Forbes was born at Douglas, in the Isle of Man. While still a child, when not engaged in reading, or in the writing of verses and drawing of caricatures, he occupied himself with the collecting of insects, shells, minerals,...

(1815–1854), The zoology of the voyage of H.M.S. Herald under the command of Captain Henry Kellett,... during the years 1845-51. (London, 1854).

1853–1855: USS Vincennes
USS Vincennes (1826)
USS Vincennes was a 703-ton Boston-class sloop of war in the United States Navy from 1826 to 1865. During her service, Vincennes patrolled the Pacific, explored the Antarctic, and blockaded the Confederate Gulf coast in the Civil War. Named for the Revolutionary War Battle of Vincennes, she was...

and USS Porpoise
USS Porpoise (1836)
The second USS Porpoise was a 224-ton Dolphin class brigantine The USS Porpoise was later rerigged as a brig...

This American expedition explored the coasts of Japan

Japan

, China

China

, Siberia

Siberia

Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...

and Kamchatka before putting in at the Cape of Good Hope

Cape of Good Hope

and returning to the United States. The Porpoise sank in a typhoon in 1854.

Captain: John Rodgers
John Rodgers (naval officer, War of 1812)
John Rodgers was a senior naval officer in the United States Navy who served under six Presidents for nearly four decades during its formative years in the 1790s through the late 1830s, committing the greater bulk of his adult life to his country...

(1812–1882)
Naturalists: William Stimpson
William Stimpson
William Stimpson was a noted American scientist.- Biography :Stimpson was born in Boston, Massachusetts to Herbert Hathorne Stimpson and Mary Ann Devereau Brewer. The Stimpsons were of the old colonial and Revolutionary stock of Massachusetts, the earliest known member of the family being James...

(1832–1872) and Charles Wright
Charles Wright (botanist)
Charles Wright was an American botanist.Wright was born in Wethersfield, Connecticut, the son of James Wright and Mary née Goodrich. He studied classics and mathematics at Yale, and in October 1835 moved to Natchez, Mississippi to tutor a plantation owner's family...

(1811–1885)
Publication: due to the outbreak of civil war
Civil war
A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same nation state or republic, or, less commonly, between two countries created from a formerly-united nation state....

, there is no record of this voyage, scientific discoveries have been published separately from scientific journals.

1857–1860: SMS Novara
SMS Novara (1850)
SMS Novara was a sail frigate of the Austro-Hungarian Navy most noted for sailing the globe for the Novara Expedition of 1857–1859 and, later for carrying Archduke Maximilian and wife Carlota to Vera Cruz in May 1864 to become Emperor and Empress of Mexico.-Service :The SMS Novara was a frigate...

An expedition organized by the Emperor of Austria to demonstrate the power of the Crown. It departed Trieste

Trieste

Trieste is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is situated towards the end of a narrow strip of land lying between the Adriatic Sea and Italy's border with Slovenia, which lies almost immediately south and east of the city...

in April 1857, passing the Cape of Good Hope to reach the Philippines

Philippines

, Australia

Australia

, and New Zealand

New Zealand

. Fourteen of the forty-four guns were dumped to make more room for the scientific collections.

Captain: Bernhard von Wüllerstorf-Urbair
Bernhard von Wüllerstorf-Urbair
Baron Bernhard von Wüllerstorf-Urbair, also: von Wüllersdorf-Urbair or von Wüllerstorf und Urbair, was an Austrian vice admiral and, from 1865–1867, Austrian Imperial Minister of Trade...

(1816–1883)
Naturalists: Ferdinand von Hochstetter
Ferdinand von Hochstetter
Christian Gottlieb Ferdinand Ritter von Hochstetter was a German geologist.He was born at Esslingen, Württemberg, the son of Christian Ferdinand Friedrich Hochstetter , a clergyman and professor at Bonn, who was also a botanist and mineralogist...

(1829–1884), Georg von Frauenfeld (1807–1873) and Johann Zelebor
Johann Zelebor
Johann Zelebor was an Austrian naturalist, illustrator, and zoologist. He was taxidermist at the Vienna Natural History Museum....

(1819–1869).
Publication: Reise der österreichischen Fregatte Novara um die Erde in den Jahren 1857, 1858, 1859 unter den Befehlen Commodore b. von Wüllerstorf-Urbair. (1864–1875)

1860: HMS Bulldog

An oceanographic study for the laying of a submarine telegraph cable in the North Atlantic.

Captain: Francis Leopold McClintock
Francis Leopold McClintock
Admiral Sir Francis Leopold McClintock or Francis Leopold M'Clintock KCB, FRS was an Irish explorer in the British Royal Navy who is known for his discoveries in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.-Biography:...

(1819–1907)
Naturalist: George Charles Wallich
George Charles Wallich
George Charles Wallich was a British medical doctor and marine biologist. He was the son of the Danish naturalist Nathaniel Wallich. He won the Linnean Medal.- External links :*http://www.aim25.ac.uk/cgi-bin/search2?coll_id=2932&inst_id=20...

(1815–1899)
Publication: The North Atlantic Sea - Bed; comprising a diary of the voyage on board H. M. S. Bulldog, in 1860, and observations on the presence of animal life, and the formation and nature of organic deposits, at great depths in the ocean. (1862).

1865–1868: Magenta

An Italian circumnavigation of the globe that made important scientific observations in South America

South America

. The purpose of the trip was also to establish diplomatic relations with China

China

and Japan

Japan

, but without success. De Filippi set out in 1866 on a government-sponsored scientific voyage to circumnavigate the globe. The ship, the Italian warship Magenta, sailed under the command of Vittorio Arminjon, departing Montevideo on February 2, 1866. It reached Naples on March 28, 1868. However, De Filippi himself died en route at Hong Kong, on February 9, 1867, from serious dysentery and liver problems. The scientific report was completed by his assistant, Professor Enrico Hillyer Giglioli. Giglioli returned to Italy in 1868.

Captain: Vittorio Arminjon (1830–1897)
Naturalists: Filippo de Filippi
Filippo de Filippi
Filippo de Filippi was an Italian doctor, traveler and zoologist.Filippo De Filippi was born in Pavia. He succeeded Giuseppe Gené as professor of zoology and comparative anatomy at the University of Turin...

(1814–1867) and Enrico Hillyer Giglioli
Enrico Hillyer Giglioli
Enrico Hillyer Giglioli was an Italian zoologist and anthropologist.Giglioli was born in London and first studied there. He obtained a degree in science at the University of Pisa in 1864 and started to teach zoology in Florence in 1869...

(1845–1909)
Publications: E.H. Giglioli, Note intorno alla distribuzione della Fauna Vertebrata nell oceano prese durante un viaggio intorno al Blobo. (1870) and Viaggio intorno al globo della r. pirocorvetta italiana ″Magenta″ negli anni 1865-66-67-68, sotto it comando del capitano di fregata V. f. Arminjon. Relazione descrittiva e scientifica pubblicata sotto gli auspici del ministero di Agricoltura, industria e commercio dal dottore Enrico Hillyer Giglioli… Con una introduzione etnologica di Paolo Mantegazza. (Milan, 1875).

1865: HMS Curacoa
HMS Curacoa (1854)
HMS Curacoa was a 31-gun Tribune-class screw frigate launched on 13 April 1854 from Pembroke Dockyard.She served in the Mediterranean Station between 1854 until 1857 and was in the Black Sea during the Crimean War. She was part of the Channel Squadron between 1857 until 1859. She then was sent to...

An expedition leaving Sydney in June 1865 to explore the Pacific Islands. One of the objectives is to punish the inhabitants of the islands of Tanna for mistreated a missionary.

Captain: Sir William Wiseman, 8th Baronet
Sir William Wiseman, 8th Baronet
Rear Admiral Sir William Saltonstall Wiseman, 8th Baronet KCB was a British naval officer.- Naval career :...

(1814–1874)
Naturalist: Julius Lucius Brenchley (1816–1873)
Publication: J.L. Brenchley, Jottings during the cruise of H.M.S. Curoçoa among the south sea islands in 1865. (London, 1873). Collections by Brenchley are handled by various specialists as George Robert Gray
George Robert Gray
George Robert Gray FRS was an English zoologist and author, and head of the ornithological section of the British Museum, now the Natural History Museum, in London for forty-one years...

(1808–1872) for Albert Charles Lewis Günther (1830–1914) birds to fish and reptiles.

1868 and 1869–1870: HMS Lightning and HMS Porcupine

Two oceanographic expeditions in the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea.

Captains: Captain May (Porcupine), Killwick Calver (1813–1892) (Lightning).
Naturalists: Sir Charles Wyville Thomson
Charles Wyville Thomson
Sir Charles Wyville Thomson was a Scottish zoologist and chief scientist on the Challenger expedition.-Career:...

(1830–1882) and William Benjamin Carpenter
William Benjamin Carpenter
William Benjamin Carpenter MD CB FRS was an English physician, invertebrate zoologist and physiologist. He was instrumental in the early stages of the unified University of London.-Life:...

(1813–1885)
Publication: The Depths of the Sea: An Account of the General Results of the Dredging Cruises of H.M.SS. Porcupine and Lightning during the summers of 1868, 1869, and 1870, Under the Scientific Direction of Dr. Carpenter, J. Gwyn Jeffreys, and Dr. Wyville Thomson.

1873–1876: HMS Challenger
HMS Challenger (1858)
HMS Challenger was a steam-assisted Royal Navy Pearl-class corvette launched on 13 February 1858 at the Woolwich Dockyard. She was the flagship of the Australia Station between 1866 and 1870....

The Challenger Expedition

Challenger expedition

The Challenger expedition of 1872–76 was a scientific exercise that made many discoveries to lay the foundation of oceanography. The expedition was named after the mother vessel, HMS Challenger....

was a grand tour of the world during covering 68,000 nautical miles (125,936 km) organized by the Royal Society

Royal Society

in collaboration with the University of Edinburgh

University of Edinburgh

The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a public research university located in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The university is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city, with many of the buildings in the historic Old Town belonging to the university...

. Charles Thomson was the leader of a large scientific team.

Captains: George Nares
George Nares
Vice-Admiral Sir George Strong Nares KCB FRS was a British naval officer and Arctic explorer. He commanded both the Challenger Expedition and the British Arctic Expedition, and was highly thought of a leader and a scientific explorer...

(1873 and 1874) and Frank Tourle Thomson (1875 and 1876)
Naturalists: Charles Wyville Thomson
Charles Wyville Thomson
Sir Charles Wyville Thomson was a Scottish zoologist and chief scientist on the Challenger expedition.-Career:...

(1830–1882), Henry Nottidge Moseley
Henry Nottidge Moseley
Henry Nottidge Moseley, FRS was a British naturalist who sailed on the global scientific expedition of the HMS Challenger in 1872 through 1876....

(1844–1891) and Rudolf von Willemoes-Suhm
Rudolf von Willemoes-Suhm
Rudolf von Willemoes-Suhm was a German naturalist who served aboard the Challenger expedition.Willemoes-Suhm was born in Glückstadt, Schleswig-Holstein. After starting to study law at the University of Bonn, Willemoes-Suhm left Bonn to study zoology at Munich under Professor Karl von Siebold...

(1847–1875)
Oceanographers: John Young Buchanan (1844–1925) and John Murray
John Murray (oceanographer)
Sir John Murray KCB FRS FRSE FRSGS was a pioneering Scottish oceanographer, marine biologist and limnologist.-Early life:...

(1841–1914)
Publications: C.W. Thomson, Report on the scientific results of the voyage of HMS Challenger during the years 1873-76… prepared under the superintendence of the late Sir C. Wyville Thomson,... and now of John Murray,... (fifty volumes, London, 1880–1895).

1875–1876: and

A British expedition to the Arctic

Arctic

The Arctic is a region located at the northern-most part of the Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean and parts of Canada, Russia, Greenland, the United States, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland. The Arctic region consists of a vast, ice-covered ocean, surrounded by treeless permafrost...

seeking to establish the geographic and magnetic north pole.

Captain: George Strong Nares (1831–1915)
Physician-naturalist: Richard William Coppinger (1847–1910) and Edward Lawton Moss
Naturalists: Henry Chichester Hart (1847–1908) and Henry Fielden
Publication: G. Nares, Narrative of a voyage to the Polar Sea during 1875-6 in the ships HMS Alert and HMS Discovery. (London, 1878); translated into French (Paris, 1877).

1881: USRC Thomas Corwin
USRC Thomas Corwin (1876)
The Thomas Corwin was a United States Revenue Cutter and subsequently a merchant vessel. These two very different roles both centered on Alaska and the Bering Sea...

Several expeditions were conducted in the Bering Sea in 1881 to find the Jeannette and two whaling ships. Wrangell Island was discovered and made part of the United States in August 1881 with the landing of famed explorer John Muir and the crew of U. S. Revenue Marine ship Thomas Corwin under the command of Capt. Calvin Leighton Hooper. The landing at the mouth of the Clark River was illustrated by Muir in his book “The Cruise of the Corwin”. Two weeks after the Corwin took possession, USS John Rodgers conducted a complete survey of the island, which turned out to equal the size of Rhode Island and Delaware combined.

Captain: Calvin Leighton Hooper
Naturalist: Edward William Nelson
Edward William Nelson
Edward William Nelson was an American naturalist and ethnologist. He was born in Manchester, New Hampshire. In 1871 together with his family, he became homeless due to the Chicago Fire....

(1855–1934)
Explorer: John Muir
John Muir
John Muir was a Scottish-born American naturalist, author, and early advocate of preservation of wilderness in the United States. His letters, essays, and books telling of his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, have been read by millions...

(1838–1914)
Publication: Muir, J. "The Cruise of the Corwin".

1882–1883: La Romanche

The building of the French Navy La Romanche was for a French multidisciplinary expedition on a Scientific Mission to Cape Horn.

Captain: Ferdinand Martial
Officers/photographers: Payen, Doze
Botanists: Émile Bescherelle, Paul Auguste Hariot, Adrien René Franchet
Adrien René Franchet
Adrien René Franchet was a French botanist, based at the Paris Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle. He is noted for his extensive work describing the flora of China and Japan, based on the collections made by Armand David, Pierre Jean Marie Delavay, Paul Guillaume Farges and others.-References:...

, Paul Petit
Doctor/geologist/ anthropologist: Paul Hyades
Ornithologist: Emile Oustalet
Émile Oustalet
Jean-Frédéric Émile Oustalet was a French zoologist.Oustalet was born at Montbéliard, in the department of Doubs. He studied at the Ecole des Hautes-Etudes and his first scientific work was on the respiratory organs of dragonfly larvae...

1886–1896: USS Albatross
USS Albatross (1882)
The second USS Albatross, often seen as USFC Albatross in scientific literature citations, was an iron-hulled, twin-screw steamer in the United States Navy and reputedly the first vessel ever built especially for marine research....

The Albatross belonged to the Committee on Fisheries of the United States and it carried out numerous scientific expeditions under the direction of Alexander Emanuel Agassiz

Alexander Emanuel Agassiz

Alexander Emmanuel Rodolphe Agassiz , son of Louis Agassiz and stepson of Elizabeth Cabot Agassiz, was an American scientist and engineer.-Biography:...

(1835–1910). The primary goal was an inventory of the Pacific fishery reserves but many other observations are carried out by Townsend and other scientists.

Captain: Zera Tanner (1835 - 1906)
Naturalist: Charles Henry Tyler Townsend
Charles Henry Tyler Townsend
Charles Henry Tyler Townsend was an American entomologist and biologist.-Biography:Townsend was born in Oberlin, Ohio, in 1863...

(1863–1944)

1897–1898: Belgica

Adrien de Gerlache was an officer in the Belgian Royal Navy who led the Belgian Antarctic Expedition

Belgian Antarctic Expedition

The Belgian Antarctic Expedition of 1897 to 1899, named after its expedition vessel Belgica, was the first expedition to winter in the Antarctic region.- Preparation and Surveying :...

of 1897 to 1899. He acquired Le Patria in 1896 renaming it Belgica. He left Anvers on 16 August 1897 passing winter in the Antarctic before returning to Belgium on 5 November 1898.

Captain: Adrien de Gerlache
Adrien de Gerlache
Baron Adrien Victor Joseph de Gerlache de Gomery was an officer in the Belgian Royal Navy who led the Belgian Antarctic Expedition of 1897 to 1899.-His early years:...

(1866–1934)
Naturalist: Emil Racovita
Emil Racovita
Emil Racoviţă was a Romanian biologist, zoologist, speleologist and explorer of Antarctica.Together with Grigore Antipa, he was one of the most noted promoters of natural sciences in Romania...

(1868–1947)

1898–1899: Valdivia

A German deep-sea expedition exploring in Antarctic regions, the Valdivia being a steamship in the Hamburg-American line of steamers. The subscription was launched by Georg von Neumayer

Georg von Neumayer

Georg Balthazar von Neumayer , was a German polar explorer and scientist who conceived the idea of international cooperation for meteorology and scientific observation....

(1826–1909) and only consisted of a single vessel instead of the two planned. The expedition quickly reached the Cape of Good Hope

Cape of Good Hope

where the study of deep waters began. The ship reached Antarctic pack ice and rediscovered Bouvet Island

Bouvet Island

Bouvet Island is an uninhabited Antarctic volcanic island in the South Atlantic Ocean, 2,525 km south-southwest of South Africa. It is a dependent territory of Norway and, lying north of 60°S latitude, is not subject to the Antarctic Treaty. The centre of the island is an ice-filled crater of an...

followed by the Kerguelen Islands

Kerguelen Islands

. For the first time, evidence of deep water in this region was provided by survey. The Valdivia then passed to the Indian Ocean

Indian Ocean

, studying the coast of Sumatra before returning to its port of origin 29 April 1899.

Captain: Adalbert Krech (1852–1907)
Naturalist: Carl Chun
Carl Chun
Dr. Carl Chun was a German marine biologist.Chun was born in Höchst, today a part of Frankfurt, and studied zoology at the University of Leipzig where, after posts in Königsberg and Breslau, he was appointed professor for biology in 1892...

(1852–1914).
Publication: V. Chun (1903), "Aus den Tiefen the Weltmeeres".

Maritime exploration in the Age of Discovery

Maritime exploration in the Age of Enlightenment

Chronology of voyages

1764–1766 :

1766–1768 : and

1766 : HMS Niger

1771–1772 : Isle de France and Le Nécessaire

1772 : HMS Sir Lawrence

1771–1772 : La Fortune and Le Gros-Ventre

1773–1774 : Le Roland and L'Oiseau

1785–1794: Slava Rossy

1790–1791: La Solide

1789–1794: Descubierta and Atrevida

1801–1803: HMS Investigator

1815–1818: Rurik

1817–1820: L'Uranie and La Physicienne

1819–1821: Le Rhône and La Durance

1822–1825: La Coquille

1823–1826: Predpriyatiye

1824–1825:

1824–1826: Le Thétis and L'EspéranceFrench ship Espérance (1781)The Espérance was a Rhône class scow of the French Navy, later reclassified as a frigate. She earned fame as one of the ships of Bruni d'Entrecasteaux' expedition, along with Recherche...

1826–1829: L'Astrolabe

1826–1829: Senyavin and Moller

1827–1828: La Chevrette

1829: La Cybèle

1829–1832: La Favorite

1835 and 1836: La RechercheFrench ship Recherche (1787)The Recherche was a 20-gun Marsouin class scow of the French Navy, later reclassified as a 12-gun frigate. She earned fame as one of the ships of Bruni d'Entrecasteaux' expedition, along with Espérance...

1836–1839: VenusFrench frigate Vénus (1808)The Vénus was a Junon class frigate of the French Navy.On 10 November 1808, she departed Cherbourg, bound for Île de France, where she served as Hamelin's flagship, leading a squadron also comprising the frigate Manche and the sloop Créole....

1836–1837: La Bonite

1836–1842: HMS Sulphur

1841–1844: La Favorite

1842–1846: HMS FlyHMS Fly (1831)HMS Fly was an 18-gun sloop of the Royal Navy. She was responsible for the exploration and charting of much of Australia's north-east coast and nearby islands. She was converted to a coal hulk in 1855 and broken up in 1903.-Design and construction:...

1851–1854: Capricieuse

1851–1853: Eugenie

1852–1863: HMS HeraldHMS Herald (1822)HMS Herald was an Atholl-class 28-gun sixth-rate corvette of the Royal Navy. She was launched in 1821 as HMS Termagant, commissioned in 1824 as Herald and converted to a survey ship in 1845...

1860: HMS Bulldog

1865–1868: Magenta

1868 and 1869–1870: HMS Lightning and HMS Porcupine

1873–1876: HMS ChallengerHMS Challenger (1858)HMS Challenger was a steam-assisted Royal Navy Pearl-class corvette launched on 13 February 1858 at the Woolwich Dockyard. She was the flagship of the Australia Station between 1866 and 1870....

1875–1876: and

1881: USRC Thomas CorwinUSRC Thomas Corwin (1876)The Thomas Corwin was a United States Revenue Cutter and subsequently a merchant vessel. These two very different roles both centered on Alaska and the Bering Sea...

1882–1883: La Romanche

1886–1896: USS AlbatrossUSS Albatross (1882)The second USS Albatross, often seen as USFC Albatross in scientific literature citations, was an iron-hulled, twin-screw steamer in the United States Navy and reputedly the first vessel ever built especially for marine research....

1897–1898: Belgica

1898–1899: Valdivia

See also

1824–1826: Le Thétis and L'Espérance
French ship Espérance (1781)
The Espérance was a Rhône class scow of the French Navy, later reclassified as a frigate. She earned fame as one of the ships of Bruni d'Entrecasteaux' expedition, along with Recherche...

1835 and 1836: La Recherche
French ship Recherche (1787)
The Recherche was a 20-gun Marsouin class scow of the French Navy, later reclassified as a 12-gun frigate. She earned fame as one of the ships of Bruni d'Entrecasteaux' expedition, along with Espérance...

1836–1839: Venus
French frigate Vénus (1808)
The Vénus was a Junon class frigate of the French Navy.On 10 November 1808, she departed Cherbourg, bound for Île de France, where she served as Hamelin's flagship, leading a squadron also comprising the frigate Manche and the sloop Créole....

1842–1846: HMS Fly
HMS Fly (1831)
HMS Fly was an 18-gun sloop of the Royal Navy. She was responsible for the exploration and charting of much of Australia's north-east coast and nearby islands. She was converted to a coal hulk in 1855 and broken up in 1903.-Design and construction:...

1852–1863: HMS Herald
HMS Herald (1822)
HMS Herald was an Atholl-class 28-gun sixth-rate corvette of the Royal Navy. She was launched in 1821 as HMS Termagant, commissioned in 1824 as Herald and converted to a survey ship in 1845...

1873–1876: HMS Challenger
HMS Challenger (1858)
HMS Challenger was a steam-assisted Royal Navy Pearl-class corvette launched on 13 February 1858 at the Woolwich Dockyard. She was the flagship of the Australia Station between 1866 and 1870....

1881: USRC Thomas Corwin
USRC Thomas Corwin (1876)
The Thomas Corwin was a United States Revenue Cutter and subsequently a merchant vessel. These two very different roles both centered on Alaska and the Bering Sea...

1886–1896: USS Albatross
USS Albatross (1882)
The second USS Albatross, often seen as USFC Albatross in scientific literature citations, was an iron-hulled, twin-screw steamer in the United States Navy and reputedly the first vessel ever built especially for marine research....