Louis Éconches Broken into leaf

The father Louis Éconches Feuillée (sometimes written Layer ) is an explorer, botanist, geographer and astronomer French, born in 1660 with Mane close to Forcalquier and dead the April 18th 1732 with Marseilles.

Voyages

He makes his studies with the convent of the Minimes of Basket and devotes himself to sciences. Jean Mathieu de Chazelles (1657-1710) teaches the Astronomie and the Cartographie to him, while Charles Plumier, which described some: 6000 plants at the time of a voyage to the the Caribbean, teaches the Botanique to him.

It draws the attention of the members of the Academy of Science and, in 1699, is sent by order of the king to the Raising in company of Jacques Cassini in order to determine the geographical position of a certain number of seaports and cities. The success of this company leads it to accomplish a voyage similar to the the Antilles in 1703: it leaves Marseilles on February 5th, 1703 and arrives at the Martinique on April 11th.

A serious disease delays it, but in September of the following year, it sails along the septentrional coast of the South America and carries out many observations.

During its stay in the Antilles, it collects new species of the local Flore and draws the chart of Martinique. It explores also the coast vénézuélienne before turning over to France in 1706. Its work is worth the recognition of the government to him, and it immediately starts the preparations for a voyage moreover long life along the Western coast of South America in order to continue its observations. Named “royal mathematician” by emanating Louis XIV and equipped with letters of introduction of the ministry, it embarks in Marseilles on December 14th 1707.

It travels towards what today is the Argentine, crosses the Cape Horn and after an animated voyage, arrives at Concepción at the Chile on January 20th 1709. There remains one month in this city, makes astronomical observations, botanical and zoological, then at the end of February he goes to Valparaíso. He travels then to the Peru and, in August 1711, turns over to France where he publishes a complete inventory of his observations in three volumes (1714-1725). Louis XIV grants a pension to him and makes build an observatory for him with the convent of Tiny on the Saint-Michel plain in Marseilles.

The Spanish colonies of Central America and the South seem to be explored by many French scientists for this period. These men were at the same time “scientific advisers” nonofficial and spies. Between 1735 and 1744, scientists such as Louis Godin (1704-1760), Charles Marie of Condamine (1701-1774) and Pierre Bouguer (1698-1758) will take part in similar forwardings.

Discoveries

At the time of its voyage in South America, it describes and draws up the chart of the islands of Trinidad and Tobago, the Río of Plata, the Falklands, bay of Coquimbo, Arica, Lima, the roads of Callao, and the town of Pisco. It also draws many South American landscapes. In its Newspaper of the physical observations, mathematical, and botanical , vol. I, it evokes the strawberry plant of Concepción ( Fragaria chiloensis ):

Several fruits, like pears, apples, the strawberries, &c. were in maturity; one served to us with the dessert as the strawberries of a marvellous taste, whose size equalized that of our larger nuts, their color is of a pale white; they are prepared same manner that we make in Europe; & no matter what they have neither the color nor the taste as of ours, they do not leave be excellent.

It does not include any specimen of strawberry plant in the collection of botanical specimens which it reports in France. Four months after his return, Louis XIV sends Amédée-François Frézier in South America for a mission of inspection of the Spanish fortifications. He becomes thus the first to bring back seedlings of this new fruit on the Old continent. Frézier is in addition in dissension with Feuillée as for measurements of latitudes and longitudes of the South American coast and the main ports of Chile and Peru. He announces in fact several errors in the account of Broken into leaf, which creates a climate of polemic between the two explorers.

Thanks to a Hydrometer of its invention, Feuillée shows that the the Mediterranean is salted than the Atlantique, indicating that the fresh water of the the Amazon is thrown very front in the Atlantic. It draws a chart of South America, which makes it possible to precisely locate contours of the peaceful and Atlantic coasts of the South American continent. He also discovers three dark nebulas on the Milky Way southern. As regards botany, Feuillée studies the Fuchsia, the Grande nasturtium, the Oxalis, the Alstroemeria, the Papaye, the Cherimoya and the Solanum.

One century before Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), Feuillée discovers the existence of broad running circular which skirts the Chilean and Peruvian coasts called today Courant of Humboldt. It observes also the inversion of the seasons in the south and the north of the equator.

In 1724, at the time of its fourth and last voyage, it goes to the Canary islands and determines the position of the Méridien of the island of Iron.

The crater Feuillée on the the Moon bears its name as well as the kind Fevillea (or Feuillea ).

The monster of Broken into leaf

Broken into leaf scientifically described many South American plants for the first time. It depicts as a monster born of a ewe as one allowed him to see ( Journal , vol. I).

The monster which one sees the figure here, appeared in Buenos Aires the 26 of August. The contrast of three resemblances which it had with a child, a horse, & a calf, curiously surprised all those which transfer it. I requested it from that which showed it to me, in the intention examining all the parts of them, & submitting a faithful report/ratio of it; but he wanted to never give up it to me. I examined it of rather near, & I drew some, without one realizing some, the principal features. (...)
This monster had eleven inches length, it had on the head an incipient hair, & on the remainder of the body a skin of color of smooth flesh, outstanding that this fetus had come in the world before its term; it had a head of man, the top of cranium was spherical, to the birth of the upper part of the face left a horn molasse, which hung in bottom, and hid an eye of well formed bull, which was in the middle of the face, where we have the nose, & finished a little with the top of the upper lip; I however did not draw it so long, not to hide the eye which this fetus had. The face was proportioned perfectly, it did not have nose, its mouth was placed as at us, the of the same chin; the ears beside the head were similar to those of a horse, just as the collar, & all the remainder of the body did not differ from that of a calf. The figure which represents it here, engraved on the original, shows all the external form regularly of it.

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