Abstract
In 1891, the « Comité de l'Afrique Française » decided to send a mission towards Lake Chad in order to find and join forces with Paul Crampel' s expedition that had left one year before. Choosing as head a naturalist was giving the mission a scientific dimension, in the exploration of a region yet unknown to Europeans. For that matter, Jean Dybowski apparently met the requirements brilliantly since, as he went on from the Atlantic Coast to the Oubangui North Bend, he carried out a detailed study of thefauna, theflora, the mineralogy and the populations he met on his way. With constant care to store up as much knowledge he could, he actually managed to gather a trove of scientific documentation and to constitute vast collections, somewhat neglecting his political assignment, indulging in his first passion. Although discredited and charged with incompétence as far as the expansionist side of his expedition was concerned - he had shortly made his way back without trying to reach Lake Chad — Dybowski made a major contribution to science by the range and the precision of his collections. Jean Dybowski's mission bears witness to the role played by science in the colonizing act.
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