The meteorological Observations in the Far-East by Jean Barthe, Physician on the French Frigates La Virginie and La Sibylle

• Main Authors: Demarée, Gaston R., Mikami, Takehiko, Beillevaire, Patrick, Tagami, Yoshio, Zaiki, Mayumi, Tsukahara, Togo, Hirano, Junpei
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: meteorological observations; Jean Barthe; La Sibylle; 1850s; Hokkaidō; Urup; Sakhalin; Strait of Tartary; Pacific
• Online Access: http://www.lib.kobe-u.ac.jp/handle_kernel/90005800; http://www.lib.kobe-u.ac.jp/repository/90005800.pdf

The mid-1850s were a particularly interesting moment as regards instrumental meteorological observations, which were then given guidelines for their international standardization. It was also a period when the European nations and the USA showed eagerness to extend their colonial possessions and to establish intercontinental trade and shipping routes. At about the same time, Japan started to break up with its two-century old seclusion policy by concluding peace treaties with western nations. This presentation deals with the meteorological observations carried out by the naval physician Jean Barthe on board of the French frigate La Sibylle which took part in the Anglo-French naval operations conducted against Russian ships and defenses in the northern Pacific during the Crimean War. Barthe’s manuscript, a record of his observations from January 1855 to September 1857, was recently uncovered in the archives of the French Academy of Sciences in Paris. For each day, it contains the ship position and the five times-a-day weather measurements. Here we will focus on the observations performed during the summers of 1855 and 1856 at Hakodate, in Hokkaidō, on the Urup Island of the Kuril archipelago, on Sakhalin and in the Strait of Tartary.