BEAUMONT, (JEAN-BAPTISTE-ARMAND-LOUIS-LONCE) LIE DE

born Sept. 25, 1798, Canon, Fr. died Sept. 21, 1874, Canon geologist who prepared the great geological map of France in collaboration with the French geologist Ours Pierre Dufrnoy. Beaumont was appointed professor of geology at the cole des Mines, Paris, in 1835. He was engineer in chief of mines in France from 1833 to 1847, when he was appointed inspector general. In 1861 he became vice president of the Conseil-Gnral des Mines. In his work Notice sur les systmes des montagnes (1852; "Review of Mountain Systems"), he summarized his theories on the origin of mountain ranges, attributing them to cataclysmic upheavals caused by the slow cooling and shrinking of the Earth.