Lalande, Jérôme
Joseph-Jérôme Lalande (1732-1807) was a famous French astronomer. He reviewed Carli’s theory of the earth’s close encounter with a comet and concluded that if a comet had come within 3,000 miles of the earth it would have created a tidal wave 12,000 feet high covering many mountain tops as it moved around the world and inspiring the global deluge stories (and by extension the story of the flooding of Atlantis).
A lesser known fact about Lalande is that he used to eat spiders!