COLIN, ELIE. - French missionary and astronomer, b. at Graulhet (Tarn) on 28 Nov. 1852, d. at Tanariva on 11 Apr. 1923. In 1870 he entered the Jesuit novitiate at Toulouse. He had been a priest for two years when his superiors entrusted him (1887) with a scientific foundation intended to increase the prestige and usefulness of the nascent mission of Madagascar.
In 1889 he laid the first stone of the observatory at Ambohdempona (near Tanariva); in the same year, with Fr. Desiderato Roblet, he began the triangulation of Imerina which, continued after the new war, forms the basis
of all the cartography of central Madagascar. While illness kept Fr. C. away from the island (1892), the observatory was destroyed at the end of the Franco-Hova war. Fr. C. rebuilt it the following year and thereafter, despite serious financial difficulties, devoted himself entirely to the patient scientific work—seismological, magnetic, astronomical, geodetic, and above all meteorological—of the colony, especially the reporting of cyclones. The government recognized, through high distinctions, the services he rendered to the work of colonization; from 1899 Fr. C. was a corresponding member of the Institut de France. His bibliography, compiled by his successor, contains more than 168 items, including books, articles, observations, and maps. Two titles outside his specialty should be noted; with Fr. P. Suan, he published a popular volume on the island: Madagascar et la mission catholique (Paris 1895); an excellent musician, he carefully collected the old songs of the natives: Melodies malgaches (Tanariva 1899).