Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Voiture, Nicolas Auguste

​VOITURE, Nicolas Auguste (vwah-tewr), South American explorer, b. in Santiago, Chili, about 1764 ; d. in Lima, Peru, in 1821. He was the son of a French merchant of Santiago, received his early education in Chili, and finished his studies in Paris, where he was a journalist during the revo- lution, but in 1794, after the fall of the Girondists, returned to South America. Inheriting an inde- pendent fortune by the death of his father, he be- gan to travel, and at the suggestion of a German hunter, who had travelled through Patagonia and could speak some of the Indian dialects, resolved to visit that country. He left Montevideo in De- cember, 1801, but, after frequent landings on the desolate coast of Patagonia, abandoned his idea of visiting the interior. He made valuable nautical observations on the coast and at the entrance to the Strait of Magellan, visited Tierra del Fuego, doubled Cape Horn, and anchored at Valparaiso in October, 1803. Soon afterward he removed to Lima, and devoted his later years to literature and science. He published " Ensayo sobre el arte de navegar " (Lima, 1809) ; " Journal d'un voyage aux cotes de Patagonie, dans le detroit de Magellan, a la Terre de Feu, et a la cote de Chili " (3 vols., Paris, 1812) ; " Ensayo sobre la Patagonia " (Lima, 1814); and "Histoire litteraire de l'Amerique du Sud " (2 vols., Paris, 1818).

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