3 86 



THE DISCOVERY OF AUSTRALIA 



Recent. 



The transit 

 of Venus. 



9. RECENT BOOKS : BESANT'S Cook, KITSON'S Cook, MAIDEN'S 

 Banks, SMITH'S Banks. 



ON the 24th of November, 1639, an Englishman, the 

 ingenious Mr. Horrocks, first observed the transit of Venus 

 across the sun. 1 Towards the end of the seventeenth 

 century, another Englishman, Mr. Halley, the Astronomer 

 Royal, foretold that the event would occur again in 1761 

 and in 1769, and he implored the English astronomers 

 of those dates not to neglect their duty. 2 In 1760 the 

 Royal Society, mindful of these things, wrote to the Lords 

 of the Treasury, urging that expeditions should be sent 

 to St. Helena, and to Bencoolen in Sumatra, to observe 

 an event that had been " predicted in the last century 

 by an Englishman, and never observed but once since 

 the world began, and then by another Englishman." 

 Englishmen in 1760 were reading of new victories by land 

 and sea in each day's paper. Were they at the same 

 time to be defeated in the Heavens by some French scientist ! 



The request was granted, and the astronomers sailed. 

 The Rev. Nevil Maskelyne went to St. Helena. He 

 estimated that his food would cost six shillings a day, 

 his liquors five shillings, and his washing ninepence. His 

 report was that his observations had been spoilt by " very 

 cloudy weather." The ship of the astronomers for Ben- 

 coolen was attacked by a French frigate. They were so 

 discouraged, that they concluded that they could not get 

 to Bencoolen in time, and that it would be best to make 

 the observations from the Cape. 



The failures of 1761 made the Royal Society the 

 more anxious to make good arrangements for the obser- 

 vations of the Transit of the 3rd of June, 1769. In 

 February 1768 they wrote to the King. They praised 

 his " remarkable love of science," and they explained 

 to the royal enthusiast the urgency of the occasion : 

 " the like appearance will not happen for more than a 

 hundred years." Moreover, it was a matter that would 



1 Welde's History of the Royal Society, vol. ii. p. 33. Grant's History 

 of Physical Astronomy, p. 419, Dictionary of National Biography. 



2 Welde's History of the Royal Society, vol. ii. p. 7. 



