Note from Baron Georges Cuvier to Etienne Cardot, 12 July 1816, endorsed and signed by Louis de Freycinet

MLMSS 12132

fonds

12 July 1816

9676336

0.01 metres of textual material (1 folder) - manuscript in ink on laid paper - 19.0 x 15.2 cm

Georges Cuvier (1769-1832), French zoologist and statesman, was a major figure in natural sciences research and was influential in establishing the fields of comparative anatomy and palaeontology through his work in comparing living animals with fossils. He became a member of the Institute of France at the Academy of Sciences in 1796 and was appointed perpetual secretary for the physical sciences in 1803.

Louis-Claude de Saulces de Freycinet (1779-1841), French naval officer, maritime explorer and member of the Académie des Sciences, sailed on Baudin’s 1800-1804 expedition which visited Tasmania and the southern and southwest coasts of Australia in the ships Naturaliste and Géographe. During this expedition Freycinet surveyed the Australian coastline in the schooner Casuarina. Freycinet's map of 1811 was the first published to show the coastline of the entire Australian continent. In collaboration with Péron, he co-authored 'Voyage de découvertes aux terres australes' (1807-1816), for which Baron Cuvier contributed a lengthy introduction to the first part, 'Rapport fait au gouvernement par L’Institut Impérial'.

A small one-page manuscript note on a single folded sheet, on the engraved letterhead of the Institut de France, Classe des Sciences, Physiques et Mathématiques, Paris, from Baron Cuvier to Monsieur Cardot signed at the foot G. Cuvier. Baron Georges Cuvier writes in his capacity as one of the perpetual secretaries of the Institute to another of its secretaries, Monsieur Cardot, with a request to ensure that a recent report on discoveries relating to the Australian continent is given to Monsieur Freycinet. Louis de Freycinet, in his own hand, acknowledges below that he has received the 25 sheets in question: ‘J’ai reçu le mémoire cité plus haut, contenant vingt-cinq demi feuilles’, and signs in full. The back of the folded sheet is addressed in Cuvier’s hand to Monsieur Cardot, at the Secretariat de I’Institut, who presumably showed the signed note to Cuvier as proof that the precious manuscript had been safely delivered. The inside pages of the folded sheet are blank.

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