Captain James Cook and The Royal Society

1969 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-18
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Hudson Bay ◽  
Scientific Societies ◽  
James Cook ◽  
Southern Latitude ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Good Order ◽  
Nevil Maskelyne

Foremost among the scientific societies of Europe the Royal Society took the initiative in making the necessary preparations for the observations of the transit of Venus in the eighteenth century, when this phenomenon occurred only twice. Such observations were necessary in order to enable the calculation of the solar parallax to be made. The observations of the transit of Venus in 1761 proved to be unsatisfactory and consequently the transit of 1769 was looked forward to with great anticipation. In 1766 Council embarked on the preliminary arrangements for the observation of the forthcoming transit. Exertions were made to engage the most competent observers and instruments were recalled and put in good order. The result of their deliberations was a Memorial to the King in February 1768. The memorialists, after stating the reasons for the desirability of the observations, proposed several localities where the observations should take place. One such locality was '. . . any place not exceeding 30 degrees of Southern latitude, and between the 140th and 180th degrees of longitude West . . .’. The King immediately granted the prayer of the memorialists and ordered a sum of ‘ £4,000 clear of fees’ to be paid to them. The Astronomer Royal, Nevil Maskelyne, F.R.S., was directed by the Council of the Royal Society to prepare the necessary instructions for the observers, Messrs Dymond and Wales, who were to be sent to Hudson Bay; Mr Call to Madras; and Lieutenant Cook and Mr Green to the Pacific. The instructions for Lieutenant Cook and Mr Green are recorded in Council Minutes (1). ( See Appendix A.) The expedition to the Pacific had for its main, but not exclusive object, the observation of the transit by Mr Green and was placed under the command of Lieutenant James Cook who hoisted his pennant in the Endeavour .

5. Exploration and the Enlightenment

2015 ◽  
pp. 62-82
Author(s):  
Stewart A. Weaver
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
South America ◽  
New World ◽  
James Cook ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Age Of Discovery ◽  
Figure Of The Earth ◽  
The Pacific Ocean ◽  
Scientific Purpose

‘Exploration and the Enlightenment ’ considers a “Second Great Age of Discovery” that came about during the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. It began with the 1735 Geodesic Mission to the Equator, designed to ascertain the true figure of the Earth. Never before had so large and learned a group of Europeans headed into the remote interior of the New World for an expressly scientific purpose or the results of an expedition been so elaborately publicized in maps, journals, and official reports back home. This trip is seen as the prototype of the modern exploring expedition. The voyages of Captain James Cook in the Pacific Ocean and Alexander von Humboldt's trip to South America provide further examples of Enlightenment exploration.

Captain Cook bicentenary commemorative presentations

1969 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-6
Keyword(s):  
Pacific Ocean ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Astronomical Observations ◽  
James Cook ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Executive Secretary ◽  
The Pacific Ocean ◽  
To Receive ◽  
Australian Academy ◽  
Opening Address

On 1 May 1969 the Australian Academy of Science held a Cook Bicentenary Symposium in Canberra under the chairmanship of its President, Sir Macfarlane Burnet. Lord Blackett, President of the Royal Society, just before delivering an opening address to the Symposium, was invited by Sir Macfarlane Burnet to receive on behalf of the Royal Society a gift of a painting of Banksia serrata by Celia Rosser specially commissioned by the Academy to commemorate the association of the Royal Society with the voyage of the Endeavour , which was so significant to Australia. Lord Blackett then invited the Academy to accept a handsomely bound copy of an extract from the Royal Society Minutes of Council held on 23 June 1768 containing the ‘Directions to be observed by Captain James Cook and Mr Charles Green, with respect to their making astronomical observations in the Pacific Ocean, and in the voyage out and home again’. Sir Richard Woolley, Astronomer Royal, and Dr D. C. Martin, Executive Secretary of the Society (accompanied by Mrs Martin) were present at these ceremonies as well as Fellows of the Society resident in Australia who are also Fellows of the Australian Academy of Science.

The Warrior, the Voyager, and the Artist

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kate Fullagar
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Southern Appalachians ◽  
James Cook ◽  
European Expansion ◽  
British Art ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Imperial Politics ◽  
First Time

Today, the portrait of the Pacific Islander, Mai, painted by Joshua Reynolds is world-renowned as a symbol of empire and of the eighteenth century. But Reynolds painted other visitors from the New World, now forgotten. One especially haunting portrait was of a Cherokee warrior called Ostenaco, who visited Britain a dozen years before Mai. This book is less about Reynolds’s portraits than the full, complicated, and richly illuminating lives behind them. It tells the whole life story of Mai, the refugee from Ra‘iatea who voyaged with James Cook to London in the 1770s and returned home again to seek vengeance on his neighboring Islanders. It traces, for the first time, the entire biography of Ostenaco, who grew up in the southern Appalachians, engaged with colonists throughout his adulthood, and became entangled with imperial politics in complex ways during the American Revolution. And it reveals the experiences of the painter who encountered both Indigenous visitors, Reynolds himself—an artist often celebrated as a founder of modern British art but rarely seen as a figure of empire. This book interweaves all three parallel and otherwise unconnected lives together, explaining their links but also exposing some of the extraordinary diversity of the eighteenth-century world. It shows that Indigenous people pushed back and shaped European expansion far more than is acknowledged. It also reveals how much more conflicted Britons were about their empire in this era than is assumed, even while they witnessed its reach into every corner of the globe.

scholarly journals Drømmen om Sydhavet: Biopolitik og seksualitet i Denis Diderots Supplément au voyage de Bougainville

2010 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 123
Author(s):  
Anne Fastrup ◽  
Knut Ove Eliassen
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Sexual Reproduction ◽  
Denis Diderot ◽  
European Countries ◽  
James Cook ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Military Strength ◽  
The Way

<p>The Dream of the Pacific: Bio-Politics and Sexuality in Denis Diderot&rsquo;s <em>Suppl&eacute;ment au voyage de Bougainville</em></p><p>An important issue in the economic debates of the eighteenth century was the concern that the advanced Europeans nations were facing a decline in population. It was assumed that this would have considerable consequences for the economic and military strength of countries like France and England. The idea that the decline was an effect of the European countries&rsquo; advanced state of civilisation was widespread; accordingly, explorers like James Cook and Louis Antoine de Bougainville were eager to examine the ways in which the societies and cultures they encountered organised sexual reproduction. Informed by the travelers&rsquo; accounts, and recognising the possible insights these offered for the challenges France was facing, Denis Diderot&rsquo;s <em>Suppl&eacute;ment au voyage de Bougainville</em> analyses and discusses the sexual mores of the inhabitants of Tahiti. Taking as its starting point the oblique and slightly idiosyncratic way in which the French philosopher addresses the issue &mdash; in the form of an apocryphal &ldquo;supplement&rdquo; to Bougainville&rsquo;s account supposedly written by the explorer himself &mdash; this essay analyses the way in which Diderot transforms an ethnographic reflection on Polynesian culture into an analysis of the pathologies of his contemporary France from the double perspective of economy and ethics.</p>

Recording the Aloes at Chelsea - a singular solution to a difficult problem

1996 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-57
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Singular Solution ◽  
Difficult Problem ◽  
General Series ◽  
History Of

In the Royal Society archives there is a collection of drawings of Aloes and other plants, made by two of the great botanical artists of the eighteenth century - Georg Dionysius Ehret and Jacob van Huysum. Although the Manuscripts General Series Catalogue records this manuscript only as a ‘Volume of 35 botanical paintings by Georg Dionysius Ehret’ of unknown provenance, the manuscript catalogue of the Arundel and other manuscripts, said to be the work of Jonas Dryander (1748-1810), provides the first clue linking these drawings to the two artists, and to the important collection of Aloes growing at that time in the Society of Apothecaries Physic Garden at Chelsea'. The history of the commissioning of the drawings is told briefly in the Journal Books of the Royal Society, and in the Minutes of Council, but the significance of these lovely and important drawings has been almost completely overlooked.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the TermAnthropocene

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 257-264 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Morton
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Earth’S Crust ◽  
Steam Engine ◽  
Radioactive Materials ◽  
Earth Systems ◽  
Huge Data ◽  
Earth's Crust ◽  
Great Acceleration ◽  
Geological Period

Not a day goes by in the 2010s without some humanities scholars becoming quite exercised about the termAnthropocene. In case we need reminding,Anthropocenenames the geological period starting in the later eighteenth century when, after the invention of the steam engine, humans began to deposit layers of carbon in Earth’s crust. Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer’s term has been current since 2000.1In 1945, there occurred “The Great Acceleration,” a huge data spike in the graph of human involvement in Earth systems. (The title’s Kubrick joke stems from the crustal deposition of radioactive materials since 1945.) Like Marx, Crutzen sees the steam engine as iconic. As this is written, geologists such as Jan Zalasiewicz are convincing the Royal Society of Geologists to make the term official.

scholarly journals Bibliography of recent books and articles dealing with the history of the Royal Society

1970 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-133
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
New Haven ◽  
Yale University ◽  
Sir Isaac Newton ◽  
Charles Town ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
James Cook ◽  
John Hunter ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Sciences

Each number of Notes and Records contains a short bibliography of books and articles dealing with the history of the Royal Society or its Fellows which have been noted since the publication of the last number. If Fellows would be good enough to draw the Editor’s attention to omissions these would be added to the list in the next issue. Books Badash, L. (Editor). Rutherford and Boltwood: letters on radioactivity. (Yale studies in the History of Sciences and Medicine, Vol. 4.) New Haven: Yale University Press, 1969. $12.50. Begg, A. C. and Begg, N.C. James Cook and New Zealand . Wellington, N.Z.: A. R. Shearer, 1969. £ 2 5s. Berkeley, E. and Berkeley, Dorothy, S. Dr Alexander Gordon of Charles Town . University of North Carolina Press, 1969. $10.00. Bestcrman, T. Voltaire. London: Longmans, 1969. 8s. Bowden, D. K. Leibniz as a librarian and eighteenth-century librarians Germany . London: University College, 1969. 7s. 6d. Darwin, C. R. Questions about the breeding of animals . Facsim. repr. with an introduction by Sir Gavin Dc Beer. London: Society for the Bibliography of Natural History, 1969. £1 15s. Davis, N. P. Lawrence and Openhimer . London: Cape, 1969. 2s. Dobson, J. John Hunter. Edinburgh & London: E. & S. Livingstone, 1969. £ 2 10s. Eales, N. B. The Cole library of early medicine and zoology . Catalogue of books and pamphlets. Part 1. 1472 to 1800. Oxford: Aldcn Press for the Library, University of Reading, 1969. £$ 5s. Edleston, J. (Editor). Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes . (1830.) (Cass Library of Science Classics. No. 12.) London: Frank Cass, 1969. £ 6 6s. Fothergill, B. Sir William Hamilton . Faber and Faber, 1969. £ 2 10s. French, R. K. Robert Whytt, the soul, and medicine . (Publications of the Wellcome Institute, No. 17.) London: Wellcome Institute of the History of Medicine, 1969. £ 2 5s.

New Zealand, New Zealanders and the Royal Society

1994 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 263-281 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Foreign Born ◽  
Future Health ◽  
Society Islands ◽  
James Cook ◽  
Group Of Seven ◽  
New Zealand Flora ◽  
Natural Historian

On 5 May 1768 Lieutenant James Cook was chosen by the Admiralty to take command of a Royal Society expedition funded by George III on the ship Endeavour , the purpose being to sail to a suitable point (Tahiti) in the Southern Pacific from which to observe the transit of Venus across the Sun on 3 June 1769. It was thought that, by observing the transit from different points on Earth, it would be possible to determine the distance of the Earth from both Venus and the Sun. The Royal Society asked that Joseph Banks (then a young Fellow aged 25) and a group of seven be allowed to join. Among them were two artists, Alexander Buchan and Sydney Parkinson, who were employed to draw views and specimens of natural historical interest, and Daniel Carl Solander a distinguished Swedish natural historian. Banks’s enthusiasm ensured that the voyage was exceptionally well equipped to handle natural historical discoveries. Having observed the transit of Venus, Cook was secretly under orders from the Admiralty then to sail to 40° south in search of the supposed Great Southern Continent; if not encountered, he was then to head due west to find the east coast of New Zealand. Following these instructions, Cook arrived at New Zealand on 6 October 1769. He then initiated the first detailed geographical survey of New Zealand, and Banks and Solander began putting together their rich collections of New Zealand flora; Cook also observed the transit of Mercury in Mercury Bay. On his second voyage in 1772 Cook went further south, entered the Antarctic circle twice (to 71° 10' S) and ruled out the existence of a Great Southern Continent, and first defined Antarctica as we know it. He returned to London in 1775 to be promoted to Captain and elected to the Royal Society. Banks went on to be elected President in 1778, a post which he held for nearly 42 years. Three other ties between Cook and the Royal Society include the naming of the Society Islands after his sponsors, the testing of a new chronometer for them, and a report to the Society on scurvy, which was to have great consequences for the future health of seamen. The Royal Society was thus instrumental in making possible Cook’s voyages, the outcome of which was a set of pioneering geographical, botanical, geological and anthropological descriptions of New Zealand. Here we trace some aspects of the subsequent interactions between New Zealand and the Royal Society by outlining the careers of relevant Fellows, namely (a) those foreign-born Fellows (30 identified) who spent parts of their careers in New Zealand, and (b) those New Zealand-born scientists (34) who have been elected Fellows for their work, whether carried out in New Zealand or elsewhere.

Transatlantic and Transpacific Connections in Early American History

2012 ◽  
Vol 83 (2) ◽  
pp. 204-219 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kariann Akemi Yokota
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
American History ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Geographical Proximity ◽  
Pacific Region ◽  
Early American History ◽  
Economic Opportunities ◽  
Early American ◽  
The Pacific

This article explores America’s earliest engagement with the transpacific world and in particular with China. From the mid-eighteenth century, Americans seeking new economic opportunities considered Asia and the Pacific region important to their development. Taking advantage of their geographical proximity to both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, Americans developed ways to connect the two regions. These transoceanic networks of trade proved crucial to the economic and political development of the young United States and set the stage for its future influence in the region.

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