In 1843, the naturalist Edward Forbes (1815-1854) exposed to the British Association in Cork his conception of a life limited at a depth of 300 fathoms (550 meters) in the Aegean Sea. At the same year, Georges Aimé (1810-1846), a French professor of physics in the small Algerian College, started to write his book entitled 'Exploration scientifique de l'Algérie pendant les années 1840, 1841, 1842 – Physique générale' (Paris, 1845). In the first volume, he describes his own observations and experiments in the Mediterranean Sea near Alger. In contradiction to an “antibiotic view”, Aimé wrote that he had found “zoophytes” at depth between 1400 and 1800 meters.

Furthermore, Aimé made some interesting physical observations on Mediterranean Sea, like Alger's tides, sea temperature, sea currents, waves and others. By his own means, he invented new instruments to study and investigate the unknown depths of the sea. Among them, there were tools to quantify the depth: a sounder release device, a reversing thermometer, an instrument for determining current, a bottle to sample deep water, etc. He used these instruments on board a small boat “at my own risks”.

In 1846, he started new experiments in Alger “which the results interested together zoologists and geologists” as said the naturalist Henri-Milne Edwards (1800-1885). Unfortunately, Aimé would died in that same year, after a fall from a horse at only thirty-five years-old.

Despite of being the most part of the time an independent observer and researcher, Aimé had some important contacts with French scientific institutions. Thus, he was correspondent of the Académie des Sciences and also member of the French scientific commission created to explore the new French colony, Algeria. Furthermore, the influential physicist François Arago (1786-1853) helped him to get a position of “sedentary observer” in Alger in 1837.

Despite his innovative work, Aimé was unrecognised during and after his short life. After his death, the French war ministers appealed repeatedly to the Académie that the Aimé's unpublished manuscripts must be studied, but nothing was done.

The aim of this paper is to set the original work made by Aimé in context, to identify the supports that allowed his work and to try to understand how so innovative work was forgotten in his own time.