GARNIER, MARIE JOSEPH FRANcors (1839-1873), usually called Francis Gamier, a French officer and explorer, was born at St Etienne, July 25,1839, and perished by assassination in Tong-king, December 7, 1873. He entered the navy, and after voyaging in Brazilian waters and the Pacific he obtained a post on the staff of Admiral Chanter, who from 1860 to 1862 was campaigning in Cochin-China. After some time spent in France he returned to the East, and in 1862 he was appointed inspector of the natives in Cochin-China, and entrusted with the administration of the town of Cho-len or Sho-len. It was at Garnier's suggestion that the Marquis de Chasseloup-Laubat determined to send a mission through Laos to Tibet, but as he was not considered old enough to be put in command, the chief authority was entrusted to Captain Doudart de Lagree. In the course of the expedition - to quote the words of Sir Roderick Murchison addressed to the youthful traveller when, in 1870, he was presented with the Victoria Medal of the Royal Geographical Society of London - from Cratich in Cambodia to Shanghai 5392 miles were traversed, and of these 3625 miles, chiefly of country unknown to European geography, were surveyed with care, and the positions fixed by astronomical observations, nearly the whole of the observations being taken by Gamier himself. Volunteering to lead a detachment to Talifu the capital of Sultan Suleiman, the sovereign of the Mahometan rebels in Yunnan, he successfully carried out the more than adventurous enterprise. When shortly afterwards Lagre died, C.larnier naturally assumed the command of the expedition, and lie conducted it in safety to the Yang-tze-Kiang, and thns to the Chinese coast. On his return to France he was received with enthusiasm. The preparation of his narrative was interrupted by the Franco-German war, and during the siege of Paris he served as principal staff officer to the admiral in command of the eighth "sector." His experiences dining the siege were published anonymously in the feudleton of Le Temps, and appeared separately as Le Siege de Paris, journal (run qieier de marine, 1371. Returning to Cochin-China he found the political circumstances of the ccatintry unfavourable to further exploration, and accordingly he went to Chine, and in 1873 followed the upper course of the Yang-tze-Kiang to the waterfalls. He was next commissioned by Admiral Dupre, governor of Cochin-China, to Tung-king to found a French protectorate or a new colony. On November 20, 1873, he took Hanoi, the capital of Tong-king, and on December 7th he was slain.

The narrative of the principal expedition appeared in 1873, as Voyage d'exp/oratiOn en Ludo-Chine effectile pendant les• anldcs 1366, 1867, et 1868, imb/i4 sons /a dir,:ction de H. Francis Gander, aecc Ic c:),t.‘ours (lc ail. Delaporte et de Jul. Joukrt et Morel, 2 vols. An an not of the Yang•tze-Kiang from Garnier's pen is given in the Ballain de la Soe. dc Geog., 1874. His Chroniguc royale do Gednbodic was reprinted from the Journal Asiatigue in 1872. See Oceag Hiyltways, 1874, for a memoir by Colonel Yule.