The French Antarctic Expedition is any of several French expeditions in Antarctica. First In 1772, Yves-Joseph de Kerguelen-Trémarec and the naturalist Jean Guillaume Bruguière sailed to the Antarctic region in search of the fabled Terra Australis. Kerguelen-Trémarec took possession of various Antarctic territories for France, including what would later be called the Kerguelen Islands. In Kerguelen-Trémarec's report to King Louis XV, he greatly overestimated the value of the Kerguelen Islands. The King sent him on a second expedition to Kerguelen in late 1773. When it became clear that these islands were desolate, useless, and not the Terra Australis, he was sent to prison. Second In 1837, during an 1837–1840 expedition across the deep southern hemisphere, Captain Jules Dumont d'Urville sailed his ship Astrolabe along a coastal area of Antarctica which he later named Adélie Land, in honor of his wife. During the Antarctic part of this expedition, Dumont d'Urville team performed the first experiments to determine the approximate position of the South magnetic pole, and landed on Débarquement Rock in the Geologie Archipelago, () just 4 km from the mainland, where he took mineral and animal samples. On his return to France in 1840 he was made rear admiral. Third Jean-Baptiste Charcot was appointed leader of a 1904–1907 French Antarctic Expedition, aboard the ship Français, exploring the west coast of Graham Land portion of the Antarctic Peninsula. The expedition reached Adelaide Island in 1905 and took pictures of the Palmer Archipelago and Loubet Coast. They roughly surveyed, the SW coast of Anvers Island in 1904. They gave the name "Presqu'ile de Biscoe" to a small peninsula on the SE side of Biscoe Bay, adding to the honours for John Biscoe – who may have landed in the vicinity in 1832. While the name "Presqu'ile de Biscoe" has not endured, the resurvey by the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey in 1955 named Biscoe Point for the rocky point found in the approximate location of Charcot's Presqu'ile. Loubet Land was explored in January 1905 and named after Émile Loubet, then President of France. Rabot Island was first charted by the expedition and named after Charles Rabot. They mapped Watkins Island but did not name it. They also charted Arthur Harbour. Mount Francais () in the Trojan Range was named after the expedition ship Français. Lavoisier Island was named 'Ile Nansen' after Fridtjof Nansen, Norwegian Arctic explorer. The name was changed in 1960 to