Everything about Antonio De Ulloa totally explained
Antonio de Ulloa (
January 12,
1716 –
July 3,
1795) was a
Spanish general, explorer, author,
astronomer, colonial administrator and the first Spanish
governor of Louisiana. He was born in
Seville, the son of an economist.
Ulloa entered the navy in 1733. In
1735 he was appointed with fellow Spaniard
Jorge Juan a member of the
French Geodesic Mission, a scientific expedition which the
French Academy of Sciences was sending to
Peru to measure a degree of the
meridian at the
equator, led by
Pierre Bouguer.
He remained there from
1736 to
1744, during which time the two Spaniards discovered the element
platinum. In 1745, having finished their scientific labours, Ulloa and Jorge Juan prepared to return to Spain, agreeing to travel on different ships in order to minimize the danger of losing the important fruits of their labours.
The ship upon which Ulloa was travelling was captured by the
British, and he was taken as a prisoner to
England. In that country, through his scientific attainments, he gained the friendship of the men of science, and was made a Fellow of the
Royal Society of
London. In a short time, through the influence of the president of this society, he was released and was able to return to Spain. He published an account of the people and the countries they've met (1748), which was translated into English as
A Voyage to South America.
He became prominent as a scientist and was appointed to serve on various important scientific commissions. He is to be credited with the establishment of the first museum of natural history, the first
metallurgical laboratory in Spain, and the observatory of
Cadiz.
In
1758 he returned to
South America as governor of
Huancavelica in Peru and the general manager of the
quicksilver mines there. He held this position until
1764.
He arrived on
March 5,
1766 in
New Orleans to serve as the first Spanish governor of West
Louisiana. The
French colonists refused to recognize Spanish rule, and de Ulloa was expelled from Louisiana by a
Creole uprising in
1768.
For the remainder of his life he served as a naval officer. In 1779 he became lieutenant-general of the naval forces.
As a result of his scientific work in Peru, he published (
Madrid, 1784)
Relación histórica del viaje á la América Meridional, which contains a full, accurate, and clear description of the greater part of South America geographically, and of its inhabitants and natural history. In collaboration with the Jorge Juan mentioned above, he also wrote
Noticias secretas de América, giving valuable information regarding the early religious orders in Spanish America. This work was published by
David Barry in London, 1826.
His name is also recalled as the meteorological term
Ulloa's halo (also known as
Bouguer's halo) which an observer may see infrequently in
fog when sun breaks through (for example, on a mountain) and looks down-sun — effectively a "fog-bow" (as opposed to a "rain-bow"). A fog-bow is defined as "an infrequently observed meteorological phenomenon; a faint white,
circular arc or complete ring of light that has a radius of 39 degrees and is centered on the antisolar point. When observed, it's usually in the form of a separate outer ring around an anticorona." (Tricker, R. A. R., 1970:
An Introduction to Meteorological Optics, pages 192–193).
Ulloa died at Isla de Leon,
Cádiz, in 1795.
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