Ignace Xavicr Morand Hommaire De Hell, a French traveller, born at Altkirch, Nov. 24, 1812, died in Ispahan, Persia, Aug. 29, 1848. He studied at the college of Dijon and at the school of mines in St. Etienne, and after having been employed in railway surveys was in 1835 appointed by the Turkish government to make a scientific exploration of the region around Constantinople. In 1838 he was commissioned by the Russian government to explore the Crimea and the steppes of southern Russia. Ill health compelled him to return to France in 1842, when he presented to the academy of sciences a paper on the difference of level between the Caspian sea and the sea of Azov; and for his first volume of travels (Strasburg, 1844) he received the prize of the French geographical society. In 1845 he was commissioned by the French authorities to explore the Black and Caspian seas; and after having made in 184G a survey of the former and subsequently explored the interior of Persia, he succumbed to illness at Teheran. The numerous geological specimens which he had collected were purchased by the French museum of natural history. The narrative of his later travels, Voyage en Turquie et en Perse (4 vols., Paris, 1854-60), was published at the cost of the French government.

The fourth volume, containing an account of his last journey, was edited by Jules Laurens, the painter, who was his travelling companion. - Adele, his wife, born about 1820, accompanied him for five years, and assisted him in Les steppes de la mer Caspienne (3 vols., 1844-'7), contributing the picturesque descriptions and the sketches of manners, character, and physiognomy, and in his last work on Turkey and Persia. She also published in 1845 a volume of poetry, Reveries d'un voyageur ; and in 1860 appeared her Voyage dans les steppes de la mer Caspienne et dans la Russie meridionale (2d ed., 1868).