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Tuesday, June 08, 2004
# Posted 4:11 AM by Patrick Belton
The Economist has an amusing tale of the transit quests of 1761, which motivated Cook's first voyage of discovery and an expedition to Sumatra by the later-famous British explorers Mason and Dixon - and, on the French side of a cross-channel scientific rivalry which predated the twentieth century's space race by two hundred years, the pathetic tale of the excessively-surnamed Guillaume Joseph Hyacinthe Jean-Baptiste Le Gentil de la Galaisiere. Later, in 1874, that year's transit impelled the first (and badly functioning) motion camera. (There's also a great deal more history here.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion
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