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Au pays des Manchots Georges Lecointe

Au Pays des Manchots, Récit du Voyage de la ‘Belgica’ par Georges Lecointe
1ste édition, 1904

Type of object:

Book & Prints

Time period:

Ontdekkingsreizigers 19de eeuw of later

Place:

Brussels

Date:

1904

Maker / Author:

Georges Lecointe

Publisher / Printer:

printed by Société Belge de Librairie Oscar Schepens & Cie, Editeurs

Dimensions:

24.5 x 17 cm

Material:

Printed with photographs and 3 maps: Originally brown calf bound book of 365 pag. With many gravures made of original photo’s taken during the expedition, and with three large maps

Graduation:

365 pag and three maps

Inscription:

Lecointe Au Pays des Manchots

Provenance:

Steve Fossett library

References:

Image by Austin Neill

Description

1ste edition printed by Imprimerie by Société Belge de Librairie Oscar Schepens & Cie, Editeurs 16, Rue Treurenberg, 16. Bought at the Steve Fossett library auction.
Story of the Antarctic expedition lead by Adrein De Gerlache, where Lecointe was the navigator and captain.
We has already well known as navigation specialist after his book 'La navigation astronomique et la navigation estimée. Paris, Berger-Levrault, from 1897'

Additional information

Wikipedia

Georges Lecointe (29 April 1869 – 27 May 1929) was a Belgian naval officer and scientist. He was captain of the Belgica and second-in-command of the Belgian Antarctic Expedition, the first to overwinter in Antarctica. After his return to Belgium he was the founder of the International Polar Organization and deeply involved in the foundation of the International Research Council and the International Astronomical Union.[1]

 

Early life and career

Georges Lecointe was born in Antwerp on 29 April 1869. His father was a well-known mathematics teacher and he proved early on to be a gifted student. He entered the Royal Military Academy in 1886 and the Military Cartographic Institute. After being appointed in 1891 as second lieutenant in the First field artillery regiment and spending some time in the cavalry school in Ypres, he passed the officer examination of the École Polytechnique for the French Navy. The Belgian government detached him to the French Navy, where he was ultimately promoted to ship-of-the-line lieutenant in 1897, or captain-commandant in Belgian army.[2][3] This three-year detachment was exceptional and happened as a result of an audience with king Leopold II: it was only granted to one other Belgian officer, but refused to his friend Emile Danco.[4]

 

Between 1894 and 1897 he trained on a number of ships in the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, Cochinchina and Tonkin. In 1897 he was attached to the French Observatory of the Bureau des Longitudes and published a course on astronomical navigation and dead reckoning, La navigation astronomique et la navigation estimée, aimed at navy students of the École Polytechnique. For this achievement, he received the Légion d’Honneur in France which the Belgian King Leopold II allowed him to use in Belgium. In his second book, La création d'une marine nationale Belge (On the Creation of a Belgian National Navy), he pleaded for the re-creation of the Belgian Navy, which had been abolished in 1862.[5] This, however, did not happen until the end of the World War I.[6]

Scientific career and later life

Lecointe was engaged to Charlotte Dumeiz (1873–1940) before the departure of the Belgica. Charlotte Bay was named after her, and they married shortly after his return. The couple had three children: Henri, Charlotte and Louis-Georges. Both sons studied at the Free University of Brussels.[5][11][12]

 

On his return, Lecointe was called to the Boxer war in China as a second in command in the navy. He was appointed in 1900 as scientific director, then in 1914 as Director of the Royal Observatory in Uccle. Together with Henryk Arctowski, Emile Racovitza and Antoni Bolesław Dobrowolski he organized the scientific results of the Belgian Antarctic Expedition, as secretary of the commission charged with the publication of the results. In addition, he oversaw a large-scale renovation of the Royal Observatory. He founded the Belgian Maritime and Vessels Association. Lecointe created the International Association for polar research, a forerunner of the Antarctic Treaty [16] and was the secretary of the International Polar Commission and Congresses in 1906, 1908 & 1913. In 1907, he accepted to become the leader of the second Belgian Antarctic Expedition, a project initiated by Henryk Arctowski. Such an expedition never eventuated due to the lack of funds.

 

He served voluntarily during the First World War as an artillery major and was involved in the defense of Antwerp, but spent most of the war interned in the Netherlands after the fall of the city.[5] After the war he turned his attention to international cooperation in the sciences, and played an important role in the creation of the International Research Council and affiliated scientific unions, in particular the International Astronomical Union. He served as its vice-president from 1919 to 1922,[13] and lead its Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams from 1920 to 1922, while it was temporarily located in Uccle following the First World War.[14] In 1919 he was elected to the executive committee of the International Research Council at its founding congress in Brussels, together with Schuster, Volterra and Hale, with Picard as president.[15] Lecointe was also president of the Royal Belgian Geographical Society (vice-president 1900–1912, new presidency in 1912), the very society that actively sponsored the Belgica expedition.

An illness forced him to resign from the Royal Observatory in 1925 and eventually caused his death in Uccle, on 27 May 1929.[2][3]

 

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