JEAN-BAPTISTE BORY DE SAINT VINCENT (1778-1846)
Le Piton de la Fournaise (2,632 m -8,635 ft)
France (Ile de la Réunion)
Drawing view"as the crow flies" of the peak of the Furnace after the eruption of 1801
The mountain
Piton de la Fournaise (Peak of the Furnace) is a shield volcano on the eastern side of Réunion island (a French department) in the Indian Ocean. It is currently one of the most active volcanoes in the world, along with Kilauea in the Hawaiian Islands (Pacific Ocean), Stromboli, Etna (Italy) and Mount Erebus in Antarctica. A previous eruption began in August 2006 and ended in January 2007. The volcano erupted again in February 2007, on 21 September 2008, on 9 December 2010, which lasted for two days and on 1 August 2015 A. An other one on 26 May 2016 ... the very last eruption just begun yesterday, 11 Septembre 2016.
The volcano is located within Réunion National Park, a World Heritage site.
Piton de la Fournaise is often known locally as le Volcan (The Volcano); it is a major tourist attraction on Réunion island. Due to his activity, the Piton de la Fournaise is constantly monitored by geophysical sensors (tiltmeters, extensometers, differential GPS receivers, etc.). The data from those various sensors is sent to the Piton de la Fournaise Volcano Observatory, located in Bourg-Murat, northwest of the volcano. The observatory, founded in 1978 following the Piton-Sainte-Rose flow, is operated by the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (Global Geophysics Institute of Paris), in association with CNRS ( National Institute of Scientific Resarch) and the University of Réunion. The OVPF often publishes reports on Piton de la Fournaise's current activity via their website in French. RIGIC (the Réunion Island Geological Information Center) takes this information and translates it into English for distribution to the English-speaking scientific.
Climbing
A high quality forestry road, followed by a track (with lots of bumps), connects the highway of the plains in Bourg-Murat to the Pas de Bellecombe (Bellecombe Pass), where a parking lot and a snack bar are available to visitors. The Pas de Bellecombe is situated over the caldera rim cliffs and offers a good point of view over the northeast part of the caldera.
A good stairway path descends from the pass to the caldera floor. This path is closed for safety reasons during seismic events that may precede eruptions and during eruptions. White paint marks over rocks delimit a number of footpaths ascending the lava shield inside the caldera. Visitors exploring the caldera should be in good physical condition, with hiking shoes and a supply of drinking water and food. They must be prepared to exercise caution, for the weather can change very quickly, moving from bright sunlight and heat (with risks of heatstroke) to dense fog with cold and rain. In dense fog, straying from paths is very risky. Visitors are advised to take the necessary precautions for sun, heat, cold and rain and not to stray from marked paths. An excellent, albeit expensive, way to get a good sight of the volcano is to ride in the tourist helicopter flights offered by commercial companies on the island The lower parts of the Grand Brûlé can be visited from the N2 highway. Lava flows that have crossed the road are indicated by signs.
Completely free access during eruptions was permitted until 1998; access has been limited since that date, being virtually banned at present.
The painter
Jean-Baptiste Genevieve Marcellin Bory de Saint-Vincent is a French officer, naturalist and geographer, who was mainly interested in volcanology, botany and systematic.
During the las years of the 18th century (particularly agitated in France) , he learned the departure of a scientific expedition organized by the government and gets the job of chief zoologist aboard a participating corvettes then met Bernard Germain de Lacépède. Thus, after leaving the army, Jean Baptiste Bory de Saint-Vincent left Paris on September 30, arrived in Le Havre on 2 October and leaves town aboard one of the ships that captain Nicolas Baudin took around the world from 1800 to 1804. He stopped in Mauritius in March 1801. From there, he reached l'Ile de la Réunion (ex Bourbon Island) where he performed in October and November 1801 ( "An X" in the Revolutionary Calendar) the rise and the first general scientific description of the Piton de la Fournaise, the active volcano of the island. It gives the name of the scientist Dolomieu he just learned the death to one of the craters he describes as a nipple. It gives its own name to the crater of the summit. Back in France in 1802, he published Voyage dans les îles d'Afrique (Travel in african Islands). He continued his scientific career in parallel to a military career: he was elected correspondent of the Museum in August 1803 and the "correspond of first class" of the Institute de France in the spring of 1808. In 1804, he published Essais sur les iles fortunées (Essay on the wealthy islands) et Voyage dans les quatre principales îles des mers d'Afrique (Travel in the four main islands of the African seas). The articles, written by international scientific luminaries, were illustrated by lithographs printed by Duval Mercourt then Marcellin Jobard. In 1828, he was appointed to head the commission scientific exploration of Morea, held in 1829-1830. In 1830 he appeared in an election to become a member of the Institute after the death of Lamarck. He died in 1846 а Paris and was buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery (49th division).
