Clément Adrien Vincendon-Dumoulin (March 4, 1811 - May 12, 1858) was a French Naval hydrographer and engineer. Among other voyages, he took part in the Dumont d'Urville expedition in Antarctica, during which he made the first calculation allowing to locate the magnetic South Pole on January 23, 1838. He was educated at the École Polytechnique in 1831, and upon completion of his education joined the surveyors engineers of the Navy. Between 1834 and 1836 he participated in the regular survey of the western coasts of France. In 1837 Admiral Ferdinand Hamelin recommended him to Dumont d'Urville as 'a wise and industrious man who will do us a good job', and as a result was appointed to embark as hydrographer on L'Astrolabe for its second journey under Dumont d'Urville, accompanied by the ship Zélée. It was during this navigation of more than 3 years that Adélie Land in Antarctica ) Vincendon-Dumoulinhe was credited as the first Frenchman to see Antarctica, having climbed the rigging to do so. During the expedition's return via the Pacific, he executed maps of many of the ill-charted islands the two ships encountered. Vincendon-Dumoulin made a point of calculating the longitude and latitude of each stopover. For coasts at which he was unable to disembark, he improved processes of measuring and drawing them without having predetermined points available for reference - allowing the execution of maps while under sail: a great advantage in naval intelligence gathering. Dumont d'Urville would go on to praise the hydrographer in his history of the voyage, saying the appointment of its hydrographer 'served me beyond all my expectations'. His fame was such that Jules Verne, in 'Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea' would have his Captain Nemo praise 'the excellent maps of the Torres Strait drawn up and drawn up by the hydrograph engineer Vincendon-Dumoulin.'



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