VOISIN, Pierre Joseph, French naturalist, born in Toulouse, Languedoc, in 1759; died in Cayenne, Guiana, in 1821. He early entered the colonial service, and was assistant treasurer of Guiana in 1792, when he was ordered to France to answer for his administration before the convention, but he went instead to Dutch Guiana, and began farming on Essequibo river. Later he removed to Paramaribo, and was commissioned to survey the southeastern counties of the colony, where he experienced difficulties of all kinds, being once detained as hostage by marroon negroes. After the surrender of French Guiana to the Portuguese he returned to Cayenne in 1812, and was employed in the central administration till he was pensioned in 1818. His works include "Statistique des parties basses de la Guiane Hollandaise, suivie d'un releve du cours du fleuve Essequibo " (2 vols., Demerara, 1806);" Petite histoire naturelle pittoresque de la Guiane Francaise" (1808) ; "Traite des legumineuses de la Guiane Hollandaise" (1810) ; and "Monographie de la Goyave" (Cayenne, 1814).