The Day the World Discovered the Sun (39 page)

16
. Maximilian Hell,
Observatio Transitus Veneris Ante Discum Solis Die 3 Junii Anno 1769
(Vienna: Joannis Thomae, 1770), 92. Translated by Bob Pigeon.

17
. Ibid., 93.

18
. “Te Deum,” in
Encyclopedia Britannica
, 3rd ed. (Edinburgh: A. Bell & C. MacFarquhar, 1797), 18:332.

19
. Sajnovics, letter, June 6, 1769,
Sajnovics's Travel Diary
.

C
HAPTER
10: F
ORT
V
ENUS

1
.
The
Endeavor
Journal of Joseph Banks, 1768–1771
, ed. J. C. Beaglehole (New South Wales: Angus & Robertson, 1962), 1:222.

2
. Charles Green, manuscript, PRO Adm. 51/4545, ff. 143–145.

3
.
The Journals of Captain James Cook on his Voyages of Discovery
, ed. J. C. Beaglehole (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1955), 1:55.

4
. Endeavour
Journal of Joseph Banks
, 1:233.

5
. John Clark,
Cook's
Endeavour
Journal: The Inside Story
(Canberra: National Library of Australia, 2008), 47–51.

6
. Endeavour
Journal of Joseph Banks
, 1:242–243; Patrick O'Brian,
Joseph Banks: A Life
(Boston: David R. Godine, 1993), 86–87.

7
. Today it's called Vahitahi.

8
. Green, manuscript, f. 169.

9
.
Journals of Captain James Cook
, 1:74. The role of sauerkraut in keeping scurvy at bay may be overplayed today, however, with Cook's fresh greens at each port of call playing at least an equal role in his mission's tremendous success at scurvy prophylaxis. Egon H. Kodicek and Frank G. Young, “Captain Cook and Scurvy,”
Notes & Records of the Royal Society
24, no. 1 (1969): 43–63.

10
.
Journals of Captain James Cook
, 1:75–76.

11
. David Howarth,
Tahiti: A Paradise Lost
(New York: Viking, 1983), 33–34.

12
. Later Cook privately observed that the island's free and open sexual mores “can hardly be call'd a vice, since neither the state or individuals are the least injured by it.” J. C. Beaglehole,
The Life of Captain Cook
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1974), 348.

13
. Endeavour
Journal of Joseph Banks
, 1:252–258.

14
. Cliff Thornton, personal communication with author, December 28, 2011.

15
. Stolen metal goods often got incorporated into weapons, putting iron-armed Tahitian warriors at a distinct advantage against the usual blunt instruments rival factions on the island made from stones, shells, and shark teeth. O'Brian,
Joseph Banks
, 92.

16
. Green, Manuscript, f. 278.

17
.
Journals of Captain James Cook
, 1:87.

18
. To the expedition's great fortune, Banks's assistant Herman Spöring was a former watchmaker and was able to perform whatever surgery the mauled quadrant demanded.

19
. Endeavour
Journal of Joseph Banks
, 1:268–270; Richard Holmes,
The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science
(New York: Pantheon, 2008), 5–7.

20
. Derek Howse, “The Principal Scientific Instruments Taken on Captain Cook's Voyages of Exploration, 1768–80,”
Mariner's Mirror
65 (1979): 119–135.

21
. Banks's assistant Solander had also set up his own three-foot reflecting telescope at Fort Venus for a redundant set of observations.

22
. Wayne Orchiston, “James Cook's 1769 Transit of Venus Expedition to Tahiti,” in
Transits of Venus: New Views of the Solar System and Galaxy
, ed. D. W. Kurtz (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 61.

23
.
Journals of Captain James Cook
, 1:97–98.

24
. Orchiston, “James Cook,” 58.

25
. Ibid., 57.

26
. Endeavour
Journal of Joseph Banks
, 1:285.

C
HAPTER
11: B
EHIND THE
S
KY

1
. Salvador de Medina and Vicente de Doz, “Observations of the Transit of Venus,” in
The 1769 Transit of Venus
, ed. Doyce B. Nunis, trans. Maynard J. Geiger (Los Angeles: Natural History Museum of Los Angeles, 1982), 121. In contrast, Chappe says (
Voyage to California
, 62) he spent the first night “determined not to go to [San José] till morning, [so] I laid me down by the water side.”

2
. Between 1730 and the mission's shuttering in 1840, there were actually multiple locations for Misíon Estero, two incarnations that were close to the water, one inland, one farther inland by up to eight kilometers. Circa 1769, the active mission was inland. There is no a priori reason to doubt the claim of “one mile from the beach” in Doz's account—although its exact whereabouts are unclear. Edward Vernon,
Las Misiones Antiguas: The Spanish Missions of Baja California, 1683–1855
(Santa Barbara, CA: Viejo, 2002).

3
. The previous location on the shores of the gulf was abandoned in 1753 because of the terrible weather and swarms of mosquitoes that bred in the freshwater lagoon nearby.

4
. On the Mexican mainland, by contrast, Jesuits had been running a corrupt network of missions, allegedly siphoning off the present-day equivalent of millions of dollars from their tills. Ann Zwinger,
A Desert Country Near the Sea: A Natural History of the Cape Region of Baja California
(New York: Harper & Row, 1983), 111–119.

5
. Survey of Franciscan missions in Baja California, May 1773, in Charles Edward Chapman,
The Founding of Spanish California
(New York: Macmillan, 1913), 308–309.

6
. S. F. Cook, “The Extent and Significance of Disease Among the Indians of Baja California, 1697–1773,”
Ibero-Americana
12 (1937): 25–27.

7
. John Heysham,
An Account of the Jail Fever, or Typhus Carcerum, As It Appeared at Carlisle in the Year 1781
(London: T. Cadell, 1782), 8.

8
. Joaquín Velázquez de Leon to Marqués de Croix, December 25, 1770, in
The 1769 Transit of Venus
, 133. Translated by Iris Wilson Engstrand.

9
. Jean-Baptiste Chappe d'Auteroche,
A Voyage to California to Observe the Transit of Venus
(London: Edward & Charles Dilly, 1778), 63–65.

10
. José de Gálvez to Fermín Francisco de Lasuén, November 23, 1768, in
The 1769 Transit of Venus
, 63.

11
. The clockmaker Ferdinand Berthoud later wrote that he outfitted Chappe's expedition with one of his experimental spring-wound marine chronometers too. But finely crafted pendulum clocks still remained the most reliable timepieces on land. Ferdinand Berthoud,
Éclaircissemens sur l'invention, la théorie, la construction et les épreuves des nouvelles machines proposées en France pour la détermination des longitudes en mer
(Paris: J.B.G. Musier Fils, 1773), 25 fn. and especially 149.

12
. Joaquín Velázquez to unknown colonial official, September 13, 1768, in Iris Wilson Engstrand,
Royal Officer in Baja California, 1768–1770: Joaquín Velázquez de León
(Los Angeles: Dawson's Book Shop, 1976), 45–46 fn.

13
. “The Observations of Vincente de Doz,” in
The 1769 Transit of Venus
, 122. Translated by Maynard J. Geiger.

14
.
The 1769 Transit of Venus
, 123–124.

15
. Heysham,
Account
, 9–10.

16
.
The 1769 Transit of Venus
, 98–99.

17
. See Chapter 9, note 15 about Hell's purported tenths of a second accuracy. Jean-Baptiste Chappe D'Auteroche,
Voyage en Californie pour l'observation du passage de Vénus sur le disque du soleil
(Paris: Charles-Antoine Jombert, 1772), 94. Translation by Mark Anderson.

18
. “Observations of Vincente de Doz,” 124.

19
. Ibid., 125.

20
. Ibid., 126.

21
.
Voyage to California
, 65.

C
HAPTER
12: S
UBJECTS AND
D
ISCOVERIES

1
. Joannes Sajnovics, letter from Trondheim, September 2, 1769,
Sajnovics's Travel Diary
.

2
. The Hungarian astronomer also recorded in his travel journal a similarly disappointing null result from Russian expeditions to observe the transit from the nearby Kola peninsula—one group coming up with nothing because of weather, the other because of what Sajnovics said was the sudden death of its lead observer. (However, reports of this Russian's death were indeed greatly exaggerated.) Entry for May 15 and June 14,
Sajnovics's Travel Diary
. Per Pippin Aspaas, personal communication with author, January 2, 2012.

3
. Entry for October 19, 1769,
Sajnovics's Travel Diary
.

4
. Per Pippin Aspaas, “Le Père Jésuite Maximilien Hell et ses relations avec Lalande,” in
Jérôme Lalande (1732–1807): Une trajectoire scientifique
(Rennes, France: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2010). The author would like to thank Dr. Aspaas for sharing a prepublication version of the present article.

5
. Entry for October 17, 1769,
Sajnovics's Travel Diary
.

6
. Entry for December 8, 1769,
Sajnovics's Travel Diary
.

7
. Letter to Count Bernstorff, October 1771, in W. F. Reddaway,
“Christian den VII's Sindssygdom
af Viggo Christiansen,”
English Historical Review
25, no. 97 (1910): 188–189.

8
. Aspaas, “Lalande.” De Luynes letter translated by Mark Anderson.

9
. Sajnovics, letter from Copenhagen, February 10, 1770,
Sajnovics's Travel Diary
.

C
HAPTER
13: S
AIL TO THE
S
OUTHWARD

1
. “Secret Instructions for Lieutenant James Cook Appointed to Command His Majesty's Bark the
Endeavour,”
July 30, 1768 (NLA: MS 2),
http://foundingdocs.gov.au/item-did-34.html
.

2
.
Endeavour Journal of Joseph Banks
, 1:312–313.

3
.
Journals of Captain James Cook
, 1:155.

4
. Endeavour
Journal of Joseph Banks
, 1:332–333.

5
.
Journals of Captain James Cook
, 1:161.

6
. A blind date with the Great Barrier Reef, for instance, would probably have ended in disaster but for
Endeavour
's wonderfully unsexy flat keel. Karl Heinz Marquardt,
Captain Cook's
Endeavour:
Anatomy of the Ship
, rev. ed. (London: Conway Maritime Press, 2001), 11–14.

7
. Brian W. Richardson,
Longitude and Empire: How Captain Cook's Voyages Changed the World
(Vancouver, B.C.: UBC Press, 2005), 73.

8
. Patrick O'Brian,
Joseph Banks: A Life
(Boston: David R. Godine, 1993), 129.

9
.
Journals of Captain James Cook
, 1:352.

10
. Averil Lysaght, “Captain Cook's Kangaroo,”
New Scientist
, March 14, 1957, 17–19.

11
. James Cook,
Captain Cook's Voyages Round the World
, ed. M. B. Synge (London: Thomas Nelson, 1897), 148.

12
.
Cook's
Endeavour
Journal: The Inside Story
(Canberra: National Library of Australia, 2008), 165–167.

13
.
Journals of Captain James Cook
, 1:444.

14
. Cliff Thornton, personal communication with author, December 28, 2011.

15
.
Journals of Captain James Cook
, 1:448.

C
HAPTER
14: E
CLIPSE

1
. John Heysham,
An Account of the Jail Fever, or Typhus Carcerum, As It Appeared at Carlisle in the Year 1781
(London: T. Cadell, 1782), 10.

2
. Jean-Baptiste Chappe d'Auteroche,
A Voyage to California to Observe the Transit of Venus
(London: Edward & Charles Dilly, 1778), 67.

3
. Chappe took thirteen such measurements during his stay at the mission, each of which helped fix the observatory's exact longitude—something the precision of his transit measurements now demanded.

4
. Chappe,
Voyage to California
, 85.

5
. The reason they're not exactly identical is that the earth is also moving approximately 1/365 (≈ 1°) of its way around the sun on any given day, slightly shifting the field of view from star rise to star set. This offset, however, is predictable and can be subtracted out of any use of culminations to test a quadrant's accuracy—as the calculations show was done for Chappe's quadrant.