Paul-Emile Botta(1802-1870)
Paul-Émile Botta (6 December 1802 - 29 March 1870) was an Italian-born French scientist who served as Consul in Mosul (then in the Ottoman Empire, now in Iraq) from 1842, and who discovered the ruins of the ancient Assyrian capital of Dur-Sharrukin. Botta was selected to be naturalist on a voyage around the world. Although he had no formal medical training, he also served as the ship surgeon. Le Heros under Captain Auguste Bernard Duhaut-Cilly (1790-1849) left Le Havre April 8, 1826 and sailed south through the Atlantic Ocean, stopping in Rio DE Janeiro and around Cape Horn. They traveled up the coast stopping at Callao, Mexico, and Alta California. Jean Baptiste Rives (1793-1833), the former secretary of the Kingdom of Hawaii, had convinced investors from the family of Jacques Laffitte to finance the voyage to promote trade to California and Hawaii, but Rives disappeared along with some of the cargo.