Perrier, Georges
PERRIER, GEORGES
(b. Montpellier, France, 28 October 1872; d. Paris, France, 16 February 1946)
geodesy.
Perrier was the son of FranÇois Perrier who revived French geodesy and created the Service Géographique de l’Armée. He graduated from the École Polytechnic in 1894 as an artillery officer, intending to continue his family’s military and scientific tradition. For more than half a century his activitie centered on geodesy, interrupted only by World War I and certain peacetime requirements of his military career. In addition to achieving important results as an officer in the Service Géographique de l’Armée, he concentrated on two major geodesic tasks.
First, as a young officer he played a major role in preparing and executing a scientific mission sent to Peru and Ecuador to measure an arc of meridian at low latitudes. Lasting from 1901 to 1906, the project was particularly difficult because of the topography and climate of the Andean cordilleras. Perrier was the only geodesist who participated from begining to end. After returning to France he was placed in charge of evaluating and processing all the measurements and of publishing the results. This overwhelming assignment, delayed by the two world wars, dragged on and eventually diminished in significance as a result of the development of new geodetic techniques.
Second, from 1919 until his death Perrier served as secretary-general of the organization created in 1919 and several years later named the Association Internationale de Géodésie. This body replaced the Association Géodésique Internationale, which had had its headquarters in Potsdam and the activities of which had been interrupted in 1914 by the war. Transforming the general secretariat of the new association into a center of activity in geodesy, Perrier suggested and encouraged many undertakings, improved existing publications, and created new ones.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
I. Original Works. Perrier produced the following portions of Ministere de l’Instruction publique, Mission du Service géographique de l’armée pour la mesure d’un arc de méridien équatorial en Amérique du Sud, sous le contrôle scientifique de l’Académie des sciences (1899–1906), pt. B, Géodésie et astronomie II, fasc. 1, Notices sur les stations (Atlas) (Paris, 1913); II, fasc, 1. Notices sur les statioins (Atlas) Appendice: Origine, notation et sens des noms geographiques de l’Atlas; vocdabulaires espagnolfrancais et quichua-français” (Paris, 1918); III, fasc. 1, Angles azimutaux (Paris, 1910); III, fasc. 2, Compensatioin des angles calcul des triangles (Paris, 1912); III, fasc. 8, Latitudes astronomiques observees aux astrolabes a prisme) (Paris, 1925); and III, fasc. 7, ppts. 2 and 3, Tableaux numeroques des observations et conclusions (Paris, 1911).
His other writings include Pascal (Paris, 1901), written with A. Hatzfeld— “Travaux scientifiques,” pp. 113–191, is by Perrier; “La figure de la terre, les grandes operations géodésiques, l’ancienne et la nouvelle mesure de l’arcmeridien de Quito,” in Revue annuelle de geographie, 2nd ser., 2 (108), 201–508; “Les academiciens au Pérou, 1735–1744,” in L’astronomie (Mar.-Apr. 1911); La géodésie militaire francaise, historique et travaux actuels et La géodésie moderne a l’étranger (Paris, 1912), two lectures given at the Service Geographique de l’Armée; Union géodésique et geophysique internationale: Premiere assemblee genrale, Rome 1922, section de Géodésie (Toulouse, 1922); Bibliographie des oeuvres de geographie mathématique publiees en France de 1910 a 1920 inclus, precede d’um projet de classification et d’indexation pour la geo graphie mathematique, which is 19 sec. 2, no. 1 of Bibliographie scientifique françasie (1922); Comptes rendus de la premiere assemblée generale de la section de géodésie de l’union géodésique internationale, reunite a Rome en mai 1922, rédigés et publies avec 18 annxes par … G. perrier (Toulouse, 1923)—the appendixes administrative and financial report (79–83), a note on the junction of the French and Italian triangulations, (95–100), and a note on the electric recording of the oscillations of a pendulum (148–157), written with Gustave Ferrié.
Additional works are “Où en est la géodésie? Les problems et les travaux actuels,” in L’astronomie37 (1923), 433–457, 505–526; “Lla deusieme assemblee generale de l’Union géodésique et géophysique internationale, section de geodesie, Madrid … 1924,” in Bulletin géodésique no. 4 (oct. Dec 1924), 241–278; “Les raisons géodésiques de l’isostasie terrestre,” in Annuairie du Bureau des longitudes for 1926, Sect, B., Tables de l’ellisoide de référenbce internatiuonale (Paris, 1928), written with E. Hasse; “La cooperation internationale en géodésie internationale de géodésie et en geophysique. Troisieme assemblee generale de l’Union internationale de géodésie et geophysique, Praque, 1927,” Annuaire du Bureau des longtitudes for 1928, sect. C; “Triangulation de detail des regions andines centrale et septentrionale,” in Geographie49 , nos. 5–6 (May. June 1928), 365–385, and 50, nos 1–2 (July. Aug 1928), 26–49; “L’Académie des sciences, le Bureau des Longitudes et les grandes missions scietifuques,” in Annuaire du Bureau des longitudes for 1933. Sect. C; and Petite histoire de la géodésie (Paris, 1939.
II. Secondary Literature. See Élie Cartan, “Information nécrologique . . .,” in Comptes rendus … de l’ Académie des sciences222 , no.8 (18 Feb. 1946), 421–423; M. Delhau, “Le général Georges-François Perrier,” in Bulletin des seances. Institut r. colonial belge 18, no. 1 (1947), 127–164, with photograph; “Le general Georges Perrier,” in Bulletin géodésique, n.s. no. 1 (July 1946), 7–21, with photograph; “Notice nécrologique sur le général Perrier,” in Comptes rendus du Comité Nationbal français de Géodésie et géophysique for 1946, 17–21; and Notice sommaire sur les titres et travaux scientifiques de M. Georges Perrier (Toulouse, 1926).
A. Gougenheim