{{Short description|French geologist (1798–1874)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=January 2018}} {{Infobox scientist |name = Léonce Élie de Beaumont |image = Elie de beaumont.jpg |caption = Léonce Élie de Beaumont |birth_name = Jean-Baptiste Armand Louis Léonce Élie de Beaumont |birth_date = {{birth date text|25 September 1798}} |birth_place = [[Mézidon-Canon|Canon]], [[Calvados (department)|Calvados]], France |death_date = {{death-date and age|21 September 1874|25 September 1798}} |death_place = [[Mézidon-Canon|Canon]], Calvados, France |residence = |citizenship = |ethnicity = |field = [[geology]] |work_institutions = |alma_mater = [[École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris|École des mines]] |doctoral_advisor = |doctoral_students = |known_for = |author_abbrev_bot = |author_abbrev_zoo = |influences = |influenced = |prizes = [[Wollaston Medal]] {{small|(1843)}} |religion = |footnotes = |signature = }}'''Jean-Baptiste Armand Louis Léonce Élie de Beaumont''' (25 September 1798 – 21 September 1874) was a [[France|French]] [[geologist]]. Among his ideas was that mountains were created in a series of episodes over geological time due to the cooling and shrinking of the earth. He also suggested that there was a pattern in the orientation of the mountain systems of the world which followed a system of five circles meeting at points on the earth that marked the points of a polyhedron.<ref>{{cite book |author=Elie de Beaumont, L. |title=Notice Sur les Syste´mes des montagnes |publisher=French Academy of Sciences |year=1829 |place=Paris |pages=5–25}}</ref>
==Biography== Élie de Beaumont was born in a family castle in [[Mézidon-Canon|Canon]], in [[Calvados (department)|Calvados]]. He was educated at the [[Lycee Henri IV]] where he took the first prize in [[mathematics]] and [[physics]] at the [[École polytechnique]], where he stood first at the exit examination in 1819; and at the [[École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris|École des mines]] (1819–1822), where he began to show a decided preference for the science with which his name is associated. In 1823 he was selected along with [[Ours-Pierre-Armand Petit-Dufrénoy|Dufrénoy]] by [[André-Jean-François-Marie Brochant de Villiers|Brochant de Villiers]], the professor of geology in the École des Mines, to accompany him on a scientific tour to [[England]] and [[Scotland]], in order to inspect the mining and metallurgical establishments of the country, and to study the principles on which [[George Bellas Greenough]]'s geological map of England (1820) had been prepared, with a view to the construction of a similar map of France.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=272}} [[File:Mountain polygon Elie de Beaumont.jpg|thumb|left|Élie de Beaumont's theory of pentagonal networks of mountain chains on the Earth]] In 1832 he succeeded [[Georges Cuvier]]'s chair of natural history at the Collège de France. In 1835 he was appointed professor of geology at the École des Mines, in succession to Brochant de Villiers, whose assistant he had been in the duties of the chair since 1827. He held the office of engineer-in-chief of mines in France from 1833 until 1847, when he was appointed inspector-general; and in 1861 he became vice-president of the Conseil-General des Mines and a grand officer of the [[Legion of Honour]]. His growing scientific reputation secured his election to the membership of the [[Prussian Academy of Sciences|Academy of Berlin]], of the [[French Academy of Sciences]],{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=272}} of the [[Royal Society of Edinburgh]] (1845),<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.royalsoced.org.uk/fellowship/all_fellows.pdf |title=Former RSE Fellows 1783-2002 |publisher=Royal Society of Edinburgh |accessdate=31 March 2010 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080828135318/http://www.royalsoced.org.uk/fellowship/all_fellows.pdf |archivedate=28 August 2008 }}</ref> of the [[Royal Society]] of London, as a foreign member of the [[Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences]] (1848), and as an international member of the [[American Philosophical Society]] (1860).<ref>{{Cite web|title=APS Member History|url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=J.B.A.L.+Leconce+de+Elie+de+Beaumont&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced|access-date=2021-01-19|website=search.amphilsoc.org}}</ref> By a decree of the president he was made a senator of France in 1852, and on the death of [[François Arago]] in 1853 he was chosen as perpetual secretary of the Academy of Sciences.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=272}}
Élie de Beaumont's name is widely known to geologists in connection with his theory of the origin of [[mountain range]]s, first propounded in a paper read to the Academy of Sciences in 1829, and afterwards elaborated in his ''Notice sur le système des montagnes'' (3 volumes, 1852). According to his view, all mountain ranges parallel to the same great circle of the earth are of strictly contemporaneous origin, and between the great circles a relation of symmetry exists in the form of a pentagonal réseau.<ref>{{cite book|author=Oldroyd, David R.|year=1996|chapter=de Beaumont's theory|pages=170–172|title=Thinking about the Earth|publisher=Harvard Press|isbn=0-674-88382-9|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sbLRuobGrb0C&pg=OA170}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Touret |first=Jacques |date=2007 |title=Élie de Beaumont (1798-1874), des systèmes de montagnes au réseau pentagonal |url=https://hal.science/hal-00910742 |journal=Travaux du Comité français d'Histoire de la Géologie |volume=3ème série |issue=tome 21 |pages=127–155}}</ref> An elaborate statement and criticism of the theory was given in his anniversary address to the [[Geological Society of London]] in 1853 by [[William Hopkins]]. The theory did not find general acceptance, but it proved of great value to geological science, owing to the extensive additions to the knowledge of the structure of mountain ranges which its author made in endeavouring to find facts to support it.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=272}}
[[Mount Elie de Beaumont]] is in the [[Westland Tai Poutini National Park]], on the [[West Coast, New Zealand|west coast]] of [[New Zealand]]'s the [[South Island]] and near the boundary with [[Aoraki / Mount Cook National Park]]. It is 3109m high.
Probably the best service Élie de Beaumont rendered to science, however, was in connection with the geological map of France, in the preparation of which he had the leading share. During this period Élie de Beaumont published many important memoirs on the geology of the country. After his retirement from the École des Mines he continued to superintend the issue of the detailed maps almost until his death, which occurred at Canon. His academic lectures for 1843-1844 were published in 2 volumes, (1845–1849), under the title ''Leçons de Géologie pratique''.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|pp=272–273}}
==References== {{reflist}} *{{EB1911|wstitle=Élie de Beaumont, Jean Baptiste Armand Louis Léonce|volume=9|pages=272–273}} *[http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05385b.htm Catholic Encyclopedia article]
{{Commons category|Léonce Élie de Beaumont}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Elie De Beaumont, Jean-Baptiste}} [[Category:1798 births]] [[Category:1874 deaths]] [[Category:People from Mézidon Vallée d'Auge]] [[Category:French geologists]] [[Category:French mining engineers]] [[Category:Tectonicists]] [[Category:Corps des mines]] [[Category:Lycée Henri-IV alumni]] [[Category:École polytechnique alumni]] [[Category:Mines Paris - PSL alumni]] [[Category:Members of the French Academy of Sciences]] [[Category:Members of the Prussian Academy of Sciences]] [[Category:Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences]] [[Category:Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh]] [[Category:Foreign members of the Royal Society]] [[Category:Wollaston Medal winners]] [[Category:Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences]] [[Category:International members of the American Philosophical Society]] [[Category:French fellows of the Royal Society]]