Expédition Antarctique Française, (1903-05), [Vol. 5]

1907

Expedition Reports Q115 E873 1903

Paris: [Masson and Co.]

Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Charcot (b. 1867) was, according to his biographer Marthe Oulié, ‘a scientist by birth, by inclination, by training and education’. Son of the famous neurologist and a trained medical doctor, Charcot made his first trip to Antarctica in 1903 aboard Français – ostensibly a trip to locate missing Swedish explorer Otto Nordenskjöld. By the time Charcot arrived in Argentina the Swede had been found so the doctor carried on South to ‘explore the unknown southern part of the Antarctic Peninsula and Alexander I Land’ (Bryan, 2011). The expedition did not make ‘headlines’, but it did make a huge contribution to all areas of science. These bird foetus specimens were just some of those in the 75 specimen cases that Charcot took back to France.