The Belgica & Beyond
amateur translations, scans, & assorted research by m.w.
actively under construction.
WRITTEN FROM THE BELGICA 1897-1899
CORRESPONDENCE
- coverage in the Belgian press, translated
- coverage in the British press
- coverage in the American press
- scientific lectures, translated
- list of Expedition publications a) Lecointe on Danco’s contributions
QUELQUES EXPÉDITIONS SUIVANTES
- de Gerlache & Charcot (the Français)
de Gerlache & the Duke of Orléans (the Belgica in the Arctic) - the failed Second Belgian Antarctic Expedition (Arctowski & Lecointe)
- the successful Second Belgian Antarctic Expedition (Gaston de Gerlache)
- the Royal Belgian Observatory
Georges Lecointe’s 20th Century
MARRIAGES & OTHER LIFE EVENTS
Lecointe Family Arctowski - de Gerlache
- Racovitza
- van Mirlo
- van Rysselberghe
ASSORTED BELGICA RESOURCES
- bibliography
- associated persons
- contemporary photographs
the sailors of the Belgica performing a “starlight concert” on Sept. 26, 1897, from Johan Koren’s diary
contact: packloafertranslations@gmail.com
Georges Lecointe: 1869 - 1928
It was with true sorrow that we learned of the death, on the 27th of May, 1929, in Uccle, of M. Georges Lecointe, honorary director of the Royal Observatory of Belgium and member-protector of the Astronomy Society of Antwerp.
Not that this news surprised us. For many years, he had been affected by a cruel and unforgiving illness, measuring its horrible progress from month to month; having voluntarily retired from scientific work, Georges Lecointe was, so to speak, entering his tomb alive.
The death of this great Belgian and Antwerpian, who threw a bright light on the name of our country in all that he did, and who was one of the most noble standard-bearers of the national spirit, does not only constitute a blow we keenly feel. It deprives Belgium, not just of an esteemed scientist who represented our country so admirably in front of the world, but also, and perhaps most of all, of a marvelous organizer, an ardent professor of energy, and an elevator of ideas and vocations, a man probably unique in the world.
We can only give a brief summary of the great, fecund, and diverse career of this elite man. His role in the development of astronomy in Belgium will be of particular interest to us.
Georges Lecointe, born in Antwerp on the 29th of April 1869, was the son of a mathematics professor. His father taught at l’Athénée Royal of our city, where many members of our society heard and profited from his strong, substantial lessons. From primary school throughout his education, Georges Lecointe was a student of exceptional merit; he intended to join the army. At the age of sixteen, he passed his entrance exam to the Military Academy of Brussels with flying colors, entering the special arms division; at the age of twenty-one, he was named Artillery Sub-Lieutenant.
However, after studying mathematics and astronomy from a maritime point of view, he dreamed of putting them into practice. Thus followed an audience with King Leopold II, that great connoisseur of men, who immediately perceived an element of the elite within him and sent him to the Borda, the great French navigation school. He was promoted to Ship-of-the-Line Lieutenant, and, with the intervention of the Belgian Government, he was detached to the French Navy: several months of practice in the squadrons active in the Mediterranean and the Levant would accustom him to the difficulties of the sailor’s profession. After a training period in the Bureau of Longitudes, his acquisition of a diploma in hydrography, and his achievement of distinction as a Belgian “Capitaine au Long Cours,” he was, by 1897, an accomplished officer of the “scientific” navy.
That same year, a unique occasion arose for him to employ his established associations for both the glory of the country and the greatest possible advantage to science. Adrien de Gerlache de Gomery was organizing his expedition on the Belgica, the first expedition which would have the temerity to let itself be locked in the pack ice of the extreme South and overwinter in the Antarctic (1897-1899). Georges Lecointe was the perfect man to take on this audacious enterprise: he would direct everything relating to the determination of their positions, scientific navigation, astronomical observations, hydrographic studies, soundings, etc. He played all of these roles on the ardent team which included Roald Amundsen, who would discover the South Pole and perish gloriously while trying to save men wrecked in the Arctic, the young Belgian scientist Émile Danco, who died during the voyage, the meteorologist Henryk Arctowski, and the famous Dr. Cook, physician and photographer. Lecointe covered this expedition, which would produce considerable results and pave the way for a whole series of similar enterprises, in a very lively manner in his book “In the Land of the Penguins.” We’ll cite this notable anecdote: One night, when it was terribly cold, he was out on the pack, motionlessly observing an eclipse of one of Jupiter’s satellites, hoping to determine the time, when a member of the crew took him… for a seal and just missed shooting him with a bullet! All the scientific work which he accomplished has been published in the Reports on the Expedition prepared by the Belgica Commission.
Having barely returned from this long and arduous voyage, Georges Lecointe was deputized as Commander in Chief of the Belgian Legion in China which was collaborating with the international expedition against the Boxers (1900). There, too, he had the occasion to display the rapid decision-making and indomitable energy which had served him so well in the unexplored southern seas.
It would not be exaggerating to say that the Royal Observatory of Belgium owes Georges Lecointe for the renewed activity it experienced during the first decade of this century and which it was so happily able to maintain after the war.
The new director began with a complete renovation of the interior layout of the establishment, which had left much to be desired. He installed steam heating and centralized electricity.
Next, with the help of the celebrated German builder Riefler, he organized a precision hourly service with normal pendulums at constant pressures and temperatures and numerous secondary synchronized pendulums, a service which remains one of the most perfectly accurate in the entire world. He modernized the meridian service by installing 175 m sights, a printing chronograph by Gautier, and an impersonal micrometer from Repsold. He refitted the 38 cm equatorial refractor with a movable floor raised and lowered by electric motors. He arranged for Belgium’s participation in the Carte du Ciel (zones +32° through +39°) and, to that effect, created a complete astrographic service including Gautier’s 32 cm equatorial photography; he also organized the observation of the reference stars for zone +21 and +22 (Paris); he created a seismological service outfitted with perfectly-attuned registers which was integrated with the astronomical service.
It was under his direction that Messrs. Casteels, Delporte, Delvosal, Merlin, Philippot, Van Biesbroeck, and Vanderlinden, all of whom have well-developed careers, entered the Observatory; under him that the latter undertook a new determination of the difference in latitudes between Uccle and Paris, that the equatorial services were able to have such fortunate activity. He was equally involved in the publication of numerous volumes of the Annales, and in interesting articles in the Observatory’s Annuaire.
In short, M. Lecointe truly brought a new life to this beautiful establishment. His distinguished successor, M. Paul Stroobant, has ambitions of developing this further, through a renovation, decided today, of its instrumental materials.
M. Lecointe also created a Bureau of Time in the Pilot’s Building in Antwerp. The Bureau is directed by a civil servant from the Observatory and furnished with a precision clock for starting the former time-ball and comparing marine chronometers. This installation, which the progress of T.G.F. has rendered useless, functioned with perfect success until the war.
Georges Lecointe was named Correspondent of the Class of Sciences at the Royal Academy of Belgium (Division of Mathematical and Physical Sciences) on December 15th, 1911 and Titular Member of the same class on June 14th, 1919. He published many articles in the Bulletin of this scientific society.
He represented the Belgian Government at a great number of international scientific conferences, most notably at the International Conference on Time in Paris and the International Seismological Association.
We must emphasize his role in the development of Belgian navigation and naval activity. He published an important work: “Astronomical Navigation and Dead-Reckoning” (Paris-Nancy, Berger Levrault & Co. 1897 VIII +392 pp. in-4, 190 fig.), which is a model of clarity and precision. In 1911, he was made inspector of schooling ships. All of our future naval officers who had the privilege to be examined by him recalled his lively and practical spirit, very far removed from any school prejudice. He passionately loved all things to do with the sea and regretted more than anyone that Belgium, endowed with such magnificent ports, took such a small part in its traffic. Quite correctly, he saw the “sine qua non” condition of the development of a national merchant navy to be the creation of a corps of many intelligent, well-raised, highly-educated officers, enamored by their beautiful profession.
In 1918, he was permitted to go to France, where he resided for some time in Paris. From the 23rd to 30th of September, he was called to Havre by royal appointment to preside over the examination panel for doctoral candidates in physical sciences, mathematics, and engineering. He also preoccupied himself with the organization of our national navy.
In October 1918, he played a very active role as the Official Belgian Representative to the Conference of Inter-Allied Sciences in London, where they decided the denunciation of conventions relating to scientific associations and created the International Council of Research and its affiliated International Scientific Unions.
With Messrs. E. Picard (president), A. Schuster (vice president), G.E. Hale and V. Volterra, Georges Lecointe had the badge of honor of being named a member of the first Executive Committee of the International Council of Research, which met from the 18th to the 28th of July 1919 in Brussels, its legal headquarters, where the International Astronomical Union was also held. He was, from 1919 to 1922, vice-president of said Union. Lecointe was also the principal initiator of the National Scientific Committees constituted by the Royal Belgian Academy. From 1921 to 1922, he presided over the National Committee on Astronomy, of which he was named the honorary president after he resigned for health reasons.
So it is necessary to consider Georges Lecointe as one of the creators of the new organization of international sciences.
Certainly, it would be a betrayal of his thinking to pass silently over the reasons of high moral propriety which determined this approach. These were reflected in the famous “Declaration,” the preface to the resolutions of the London Conference. We know, however, that Lecointe was struck by the advantages it would present for the Latin and Anglo-Saxon world to have an international association encompassing all the disciplines of astronomy within one uniform plan. It would have been something similar to the “Astronomische Gesellschaft” in which he partook and which, if not for the war, would have, on his initiative, met for the second time in Brussels (the first time since their session in 1889 under the guidance of H. Gyldén); in the last few years, however, that organization has chiefly recruited its members from the Germanic and Scandinavian worlds. This wish has been fulfilled beyond the hopes of its author, as the International Astronomical Union exercises the most fortunate influence over the organization and coordination of astronomical work throughout the entire world.
Georges Lecointe was a member correspondent of the Institute of France (Academy of Sciences) and of the Bureau of Longitudes; the only Belgian member of the Royal Astronomical Society of London; a member of many geographical and navigational societies; he bore the highest honorable distinctions, both Belgian and foreign.
An indefatigable worker of overflowing activity, a highly skilled organizer, and a realizer of plans without equal, he possessed a profound understanding of men. He was a great traveler and a polyglot. In his person, he united the art of command on land and sea, the flexibility of a politician, the distinction of a worldly man and the idealism of a scientist. He was, in every sense of the term, a complete and eminently likable personality.
Naturally good, welcoming, and benevolent, but also most humble, Lecointe encouraged every initiative, voluntarily paying out of his pocket and his personal salary for whatever he thought might obtain a palpable scientific result or some success which could raise our international reputation. On the other hand, he demanded, from his subordinates and even his friends, the same punctuality and the same fidelity that he himself showed in fulfilling even his smallest commitments.
The Astronomy Society of Antwerp has contracted a profound debt of gratitude for Georges Lecointe. From its very beginnings, he encouraged our young society; he insisted on registering among the numbers of its protectors; he received our members many times in his vast office at the Observatory; he even insisted on marking, in the preface that he so willingly produced for the first booklet of our Mémoires, the high esteem which he held for the amateur astronomers who, “in concert with specialists, fortunately contribute to a wide-spread liking for sciences in the people around them.”
In the autumn of 1924, we sought once more to see him. He had the following words written for us, which give a clear picture of the final years of his life, and which were delivered by a signature affixed with the help of a stamp:
“My dear friend,
Thank you for the thought of coming to see me around the 25th anniversary of the return of the Belgica. Unfortunately, the state of my health does not permit me to receive anyone outside of members of the Observatory for service reasons.
A cordial handshake.”
Out of an incredible thoughtfulness, Lecointe did not want to inflict the painful spectacle of his physical decline onto anyone who had known him in all of his exuberant vigor. Does this trait not paint the man better than the longest essay?
The Astronomy Society of Antwerp kneels respectfully before his tomb which opened too soon; it associates itself with the mourning that has stricken the nation, astronomy, the Observatory, international science, and all who lose a friend.
1. the founder of the Belgian Astronomy Society
2. professor emeritus of the Military Academy and one of Danco’s mentors
Lecointe’s other obituaries have not been included as the National Library of Belgium’s digital newspaper records have much more restricted access in the later 1920s.
That same year, a unique occasion arose for him to employ his established associations for both the glory of the country and the greatest possible advantage to science. Adrien de Gerlache de Gomery was organizing his expedition on the Belgica, the first expedition which would have the temerity to let itself be locked in the pack ice of the extreme South and overwinter in the Antarctic (1897-1899). Georges Lecointe was the perfect man to take on this audacious enterprise: he would direct everything relating to the determination of their positions, scientific navigation, astronomical observations, hydrographic studies, soundings, etc. He played all of these roles on the ardent team which included Roald Amundsen, who would discover the South Pole and perish gloriously while trying to save men wrecked in the Arctic, the young Belgian scientist Émile Danco, who died during the voyage, the meteorologist Henryk Arctowski, and the famous Dr. Cook, physician and photographer. Lecointe covered this expedition, which would produce considerable results and pave the way for a whole series of similar enterprises, in a very lively manner in his book “In the Land of the Penguins.” We’ll cite this notable anecdote: One night, when it was terribly cold, he was out on the pack, motionlessly observing an eclipse of one of Jupiter’s satellites, hoping to determine the time, when a member of the crew took him… for a seal and just missed shooting him with a bullet! All the scientific work which he accomplished has been published in the Reports on the Expedition prepared by the Belgica Commission.
Having barely returned from this long and arduous voyage, Georges Lecointe was deputized as Commander in Chief of the Belgian Legion in China which was collaborating with the international expedition against the Boxers (1900). There, too, he had the occasion to display the rapid decision-making and indomitable energy which had served him so well in the unexplored southern seas.
At the Observatory
But Georges Lecointe’s career would take another direction. M. Charles Lagrange decided to retire from his position as the Director of the Royal Belgian Observatory and so our premier national astronomical establishment needed at its head a personality that could combine scientific merit with the qualities of an indispensable administrator and organizer. The second in command of the Belgica was presented. He did not accept this heavy burden until he had been assured that any funds he deemed necessary would be put at his disposal and he had definitively left the army.It would not be exaggerating to say that the Royal Observatory of Belgium owes Georges Lecointe for the renewed activity it experienced during the first decade of this century and which it was so happily able to maintain after the war.
The new director began with a complete renovation of the interior layout of the establishment, which had left much to be desired. He installed steam heating and centralized electricity.
Next, with the help of the celebrated German builder Riefler, he organized a precision hourly service with normal pendulums at constant pressures and temperatures and numerous secondary synchronized pendulums, a service which remains one of the most perfectly accurate in the entire world. He modernized the meridian service by installing 175 m sights, a printing chronograph by Gautier, and an impersonal micrometer from Repsold. He refitted the 38 cm equatorial refractor with a movable floor raised and lowered by electric motors. He arranged for Belgium’s participation in the Carte du Ciel (zones +32° through +39°) and, to that effect, created a complete astrographic service including Gautier’s 32 cm equatorial photography; he also organized the observation of the reference stars for zone +21 and +22 (Paris); he created a seismological service outfitted with perfectly-attuned registers which was integrated with the astronomical service.
It was under his direction that Messrs. Casteels, Delporte, Delvosal, Merlin, Philippot, Van Biesbroeck, and Vanderlinden, all of whom have well-developed careers, entered the Observatory; under him that the latter undertook a new determination of the difference in latitudes between Uccle and Paris, that the equatorial services were able to have such fortunate activity. He was equally involved in the publication of numerous volumes of the Annales, and in interesting articles in the Observatory’s Annuaire.
In short, M. Lecointe truly brought a new life to this beautiful establishment. His distinguished successor, M. Paul Stroobant, has ambitions of developing this further, through a renovation, decided today, of its instrumental materials.
M. Lecointe also created a Bureau of Time in the Pilot’s Building in Antwerp. The Bureau is directed by a civil servant from the Observatory and furnished with a precision clock for starting the former time-ball and comparing marine chronometers. This installation, which the progress of T.G.F. has rendered useless, functioned with perfect success until the war.
Georges Lecointe was named Correspondent of the Class of Sciences at the Royal Academy of Belgium (Division of Mathematical and Physical Sciences) on December 15th, 1911 and Titular Member of the same class on June 14th, 1919. He published many articles in the Bulletin of this scientific society.
He represented the Belgian Government at a great number of international scientific conferences, most notably at the International Conference on Time in Paris and the International Seismological Association.
We must emphasize his role in the development of Belgian navigation and naval activity. He published an important work: “Astronomical Navigation and Dead-Reckoning” (Paris-Nancy, Berger Levrault & Co. 1897 VIII +392 pp. in-4, 190 fig.), which is a model of clarity and precision. In 1911, he was made inspector of schooling ships. All of our future naval officers who had the privilege to be examined by him recalled his lively and practical spirit, very far removed from any school prejudice. He passionately loved all things to do with the sea and regretted more than anyone that Belgium, endowed with such magnificent ports, took such a small part in its traffic. Quite correctly, he saw the “sine qua non” condition of the development of a national merchant navy to be the creation of a corps of many intelligent, well-raised, highly-educated officers, enamored by their beautiful profession.
The International Astronomical Union
Upon the invasion of Belgium, August 4th, 1914, Lecointe enlisted voluntarily and was named Artillery Major at the fortified position of Antwerp, where he directed the anti-aircraft weaponry. We recall that he asked us, at that moment, to send him a small 54 mm telescope, one that belonged to the Astronomical Society of Antwerp and had a special base. In October, he left his besieged station at the latest possible moment and was interned in Holland. He wrote to us from Oldebroek on October 13th, 1915: “Though I am dedicated above all to the military role which is presently allotted to me, I have the satisfaction of not going completely rusty from a scientific point of view. In this order of ideas, I have notably accepted, at the request of the members of the Academy of Amsterdam, a very modest collaboration in the remarkable publication of the works of Huygens, of which 12 volumes have already appeared. In my surplus time, my life passes by hoping that a happy circumstance will occur one of these days that will allow me to retake my place in the ranks of the campaigning army.”In 1918, he was permitted to go to France, where he resided for some time in Paris. From the 23rd to 30th of September, he was called to Havre by royal appointment to preside over the examination panel for doctoral candidates in physical sciences, mathematics, and engineering. He also preoccupied himself with the organization of our national navy.
In October 1918, he played a very active role as the Official Belgian Representative to the Conference of Inter-Allied Sciences in London, where they decided the denunciation of conventions relating to scientific associations and created the International Council of Research and its affiliated International Scientific Unions.
With Messrs. E. Picard (president), A. Schuster (vice president), G.E. Hale and V. Volterra, Georges Lecointe had the badge of honor of being named a member of the first Executive Committee of the International Council of Research, which met from the 18th to the 28th of July 1919 in Brussels, its legal headquarters, where the International Astronomical Union was also held. He was, from 1919 to 1922, vice-president of said Union. Lecointe was also the principal initiator of the National Scientific Committees constituted by the Royal Belgian Academy. From 1921 to 1922, he presided over the National Committee on Astronomy, of which he was named the honorary president after he resigned for health reasons.
So it is necessary to consider Georges Lecointe as one of the creators of the new organization of international sciences.
Certainly, it would be a betrayal of his thinking to pass silently over the reasons of high moral propriety which determined this approach. These were reflected in the famous “Declaration,” the preface to the resolutions of the London Conference. We know, however, that Lecointe was struck by the advantages it would present for the Latin and Anglo-Saxon world to have an international association encompassing all the disciplines of astronomy within one uniform plan. It would have been something similar to the “Astronomische Gesellschaft” in which he partook and which, if not for the war, would have, on his initiative, met for the second time in Brussels (the first time since their session in 1889 under the guidance of H. Gyldén); in the last few years, however, that organization has chiefly recruited its members from the Germanic and Scandinavian worlds. This wish has been fulfilled beyond the hopes of its author, as the International Astronomical Union exercises the most fortunate influence over the organization and coordination of astronomical work throughout the entire world.
Georges Lecointe was a member correspondent of the Institute of France (Academy of Sciences) and of the Bureau of Longitudes; the only Belgian member of the Royal Astronomical Society of London; a member of many geographical and navigational societies; he bore the highest honorable distinctions, both Belgian and foreign.
An indefatigable worker of overflowing activity, a highly skilled organizer, and a realizer of plans without equal, he possessed a profound understanding of men. He was a great traveler and a polyglot. In his person, he united the art of command on land and sea, the flexibility of a politician, the distinction of a worldly man and the idealism of a scientist. He was, in every sense of the term, a complete and eminently likable personality.
Naturally good, welcoming, and benevolent, but also most humble, Lecointe encouraged every initiative, voluntarily paying out of his pocket and his personal salary for whatever he thought might obtain a palpable scientific result or some success which could raise our international reputation. On the other hand, he demanded, from his subordinates and even his friends, the same punctuality and the same fidelity that he himself showed in fulfilling even his smallest commitments.
The Astronomy Society of Antwerp has contracted a profound debt of gratitude for Georges Lecointe. From its very beginnings, he encouraged our young society; he insisted on registering among the numbers of its protectors; he received our members many times in his vast office at the Observatory; he even insisted on marking, in the preface that he so willingly produced for the first booklet of our Mémoires, the high esteem which he held for the amateur astronomers who, “in concert with specialists, fortunately contribute to a wide-spread liking for sciences in the people around them.”
In the autumn of 1924, we sought once more to see him. He had the following words written for us, which give a clear picture of the final years of his life, and which were delivered by a signature affixed with the help of a stamp:
“My dear friend,
Thank you for the thought of coming to see me around the 25th anniversary of the return of the Belgica. Unfortunately, the state of my health does not permit me to receive anyone outside of members of the Observatory for service reasons.
A cordial handshake.”
Out of an incredible thoughtfulness, Lecointe did not want to inflict the painful spectacle of his physical decline onto anyone who had known him in all of his exuberant vigor. Does this trait not paint the man better than the longest essay?
The Astronomy Society of Antwerp kneels respectfully before his tomb which opened too soon; it associates itself with the mourning that has stricken the nation, astronomy, the Observatory, international science, and all who lose a friend.
Georges Lecointe: In Memorium
The Belgian Astronomy Society has been dealt a great loss. On the 20th of last May, Georges Lecointe succumbed to the cruel disease which had already forced him to resign from his work as the Director of our Astronomical Observatory; that disease which, until his very last day, he fought against with all the vigor of his most fortified soul. The Belgian and foreign press have already recounted all that he did in his life, his life of labor and of devotion to science, and all his accomplishments: we’ve not reprinted them here. He himself did not want anyone to visit his tomb to remember all the good that he was able to do.
The Belgian Astronomy Society, however, cannot forget all that he did for it, from the very first days when, in taking over as Director of our Royal Observatory, he also took our scientific interests into his own hands. As a Member of our Council, he was available to us every day and at every hour, granting us the most energetic, the most cordial support; he did everything within his power to promote the initiatives which gave Fernand Jacobs1 the halo around his name; he performed an unforgettable service for our amateur astronomers, granting them permission to perform real-time observations under the cupolas of the Royal Observatory.
Georges Lecointe will be remembered as an incomparable leader in the realm of science. The Royal Observatory owes all its modernities and resources to him; for the honor of the country, he managed to extract these resources from parliaments generally uninterested in matters of science. He had already displayed these superior qualities during the overwintering of the Belgica, when he was dragged into the Antarctic ice by Adrien de Gerlache. All his life he was himself: passionate in his work, firm in his decisions, tireless in his endeavors.
Alongside his kin, we went to his final resting place in order to give him, from all of us, an eternal and painful farewell.
The Belgian Astronomy Society, however, cannot forget all that he did for it, from the very first days when, in taking over as Director of our Royal Observatory, he also took our scientific interests into his own hands. As a Member of our Council, he was available to us every day and at every hour, granting us the most energetic, the most cordial support; he did everything within his power to promote the initiatives which gave Fernand Jacobs1 the halo around his name; he performed an unforgettable service for our amateur astronomers, granting them permission to perform real-time observations under the cupolas of the Royal Observatory.
Georges Lecointe will be remembered as an incomparable leader in the realm of science. The Royal Observatory owes all its modernities and resources to him; for the honor of the country, he managed to extract these resources from parliaments generally uninterested in matters of science. He had already displayed these superior qualities during the overwintering of the Belgica, when he was dragged into the Antarctic ice by Adrien de Gerlache. All his life he was himself: passionate in his work, firm in his decisions, tireless in his endeavors.
Alongside his kin, we went to his final resting place in order to give him, from all of us, an eternal and painful farewell.
E. Lagrange2
January 1929
Ciel et Terre, Volume 45
Bulletin of the Société Belge d’Astronomie
(the amateur astronomers’ society)
January 1929
Ciel et Terre, Volume 45
Bulletin of the Société Belge d’Astronomie
(the amateur astronomers’ society)
1. the founder of the Belgian Astronomy Society
2. professor emeritus of the Military Academy and one of Danco’s mentors