800.014 Antarctic/12–3046
The French Embassy to the Department of State
Aide-Mémoire
Adélie Land was duly annexed by Dumont d’Urville during his expedition to Antarctica in 1840. The official report of the taking of possession was prepared by Dumont d’Urville on February 19, 1840, aboard the Astrolabe, which was at that time lying in the roads at Hobart, Tasmania.
This discovery was the subject of an article published in the Sydney Herald of March 13, 1840.
On March 27, 1924, a decree of the French Government reserved to French citizens the right to mine, hunt, and fish in these territories.
On April 2, 1924, the Journal Officiel published a decision of the Ministry of the Navy placing Adélie Land under the supervision of the French Navy in the Pacific.
On November 21, 1924, another decree placed Adélie Land and other Antarctic islands and archipelagoes under the jurisdiction of the General Government of Madagascar.
Dumont d’Urville’s maps gave Adélie Land the following limits:
136°–142° East Greenwich
These limits, which were the subject of various communications between the French and British Governments, are at present the very same limits set by Dumont d’Urville.
As for the limit in depth, an Order in Council of the British Government dated February 7, 1933 having stipulated that “all territories south of the 60th parallel and situated between the 45th and the 160th meridians are under British sovereignty, except Adélie Land”, the French Government specified, in a decree of April 1, 1938, that France’s possession in Antarctica extends south of the 60th parallel to the South Pole.
An exchange of notes on October 25, 1938, between the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the British Embassy in Paris, also acting in behalf of the Australian and New Zealand Governments, granted British, Australian, and New Zealand aircraft, subject to reciprocity, the right to fly over Adélie Land.