Jean Baptiste Louis Rome de l'Isle - Encyclopedia

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES

JEAN BAPTISTE LOUIS ROMEDE L'ISLE (1736-1790), French mineralogist, was born on the 26th of August 1736 at Gray, in Haute-Saline. As secretary of a company of artillery he visited the East Indies, and was taken prisoner by the English in 1761 and held in captivity for three years. Subsequently he became distinguished for his researches on mineralogy and crystallography. He was the author of Essai de Cristallographie (1772), the second edition of which, regarded as his principal work, was published as Cristallographie (3 vols. and atlas, 1783). He died at Paris on the 7th of March 1790.