Adolphe d'Archiac

Étienne Jules Adolphe Desmier de Saint-Simon, Vicomte d'Archiac (24 September 1802 – 24 December 1868) was a French geologist and paleontologist.

Prior to this he had published an historical romance (Zizim, ou les Chevaliers de Rhodes, roman historique du XVe siècle);[1] but now geology became his primary focus.

In his earlier scientific works, which date from 1835, he described the Tertiary and Cretaceous formations of France, Belgium and England, and dealt especially with the distribution of fossils geographically and in sequence.

In 1857 he was elected a member of the French Academy of Sciences, and in 1861 he was appointed professor of paleontology in the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris.

[2][5] While suffering from severe depression he committed suicide by throwing himself into the River Seine on Christmas Eve, 1868.