Where Australia Collides with Asiain proper places, contribute greatly to the improvement of Astronomy on which Navigation
so much depends ... That the like appearance after the 3rd of June 1769 will not happen for
more than 100 years ... That a correct Set of Observations made in the Southern latitudes
would be of greater importance than many of those made in the Northern.The command of the expedition was entrusted to Lieutenant James Cook, whose
remarkable qualities as a seaman, navigator and cartographer had been proven in his
survey of the coast of Newfoundland, where he had carefully observed and recorded
an eclipse of the sun which allowed an accurate determination of the longitude of
Newfoundland. It was by Cook’s recommendation that the Earl of Pembroke, a sturdy
coal carrier, was commissioned for the voyage and renamed the HMB Endeavour.
As a merchant seaman Cook had learnt his trade on these tough colliers, stoutly built
with a large storage capacity and a flat bottom that drew comparatively little water.
He knew they could sail close to shore in only a few fathoms of water and if necessary
the ship could be easily
careened and repaired on
a foreign shore.
Lieutenant Cook was
called before the Council
of the Royal Society
and formally appointed
as one of its ‘Observers
of the Transit of Venus’
and Mr Charles Green,
an assistant astron-
omer at the Greenwich
Observatory, was app-
ointed to be the ‘Second
Observer’. The End-
eavour did not carry
the marine chronometer
currently being devised
by James Harrison and
significantly Green was
one of the few men
besides Cook who could
calculate longitude at sea
purely from observations
of the moon and stars.
Green proved a tirelessPortrait of Captain James Cook, George Nathaniel Dance, National Maritime
Museum London24
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