Grandidier, Alfred

Born Dec. 20, 1836, in Paris; died there Sept. 13, 1921. French traveler and naturalist; member of the Academy of Sciences, Paris (1885).

Between 1865 and 1870, Grandidier visited Madagascar a number of times, fully crossing it three times; he discovered a number of mountain ranges, investigated more than 800 settlements, and collected valuable materials on the vegetation of Madagascar’s altitudinal zone. When he returned to France, Grandidier undertook the publication of a fundamental multivolume work, which he wrote in collaboration with his son Guillaume. The fourth volume, The Ethnography of Madagascar, concerns questions of the origin, history, social structure, and ethnology of the Malagasy people; it is one of the principal sources for description of the history and social system of the Malagasies at the end of the 19th century.