Enchanted Globes There is a secret among people who are attracted to globes. World globes of every shape and size are part of the phenomenon. Spin the globe, when the spin stops, let your eyes rest where they will. There! Nine times out of ten, your imagination is stirred. Where will it take you? Maybe only on to another spin, or maybe it will awake a curiosity that has been set aside and may now be revisited. I’ve heard of people doing this sort of thing with darts thrown at a map, planning to physically go wherever the dart lands. But for me, the globe spin is a far superior method, and the journey is virtual, not physical. A recent spin led me to consider the vastness of the Pacific Ocean, much as I would consider the vastness of the universe while looking at the night sky. Clearly, the globe places in perspective the enormity of the Pacific. This particular globe was from a Replogle “World Classic” series, called the “Trafalgar”, a blue-ocean globe, in a modern-looking floor stand. The globe is 16” in diameter, so about the size of a beach-ball. Small but accurate illustrations of vessels are shown throughout the blue waters of the globe. In the Pacific, you see a “Polynesian Canoe 700 A.D.” near the Hawaiian Islands, and “H.M.S. Beagle, Charles Darwin 1831-36” off the Galapagos. And there, just northeast of New Zealand, was a lovely, miniature etching of a merchant collier vessel under full sail. Looking more closely “Endeavor: James Cook 1768-71” was the notation. I knew I’d found my daily muse. The fascination with Captain James Cook is evident to anyone visiting the South Pacific. The first European to explore the eastern coast of Australia, his mark was made throughout the Pacific Islands.
James Cook was not a typical commander of his day. A common man, he worked his way up through the ranks of the British Navy. While he had proven himself a capable sailor, his obscurity and lack of experience were noted when the Royal Geographic Society put his name forward as the man they recommended to command a scientific mission of great importance to advance the study of world geography. Astronomer Edmund Halley, suggested that the distance from the Sun to the Earth could be calculated by timing the transit of Venus across the face of the Sun. This theory was proposed in 1716, with the next eclipse of Venus across the Sun predicted to take place on June 3, 1769. The Royal Geographic Society proposed to send three observers to designated points on the globe: one to the north of Norway, one to Hudson Bay and one to an island in the Pacific. The British Admiralty approved Cook’s appointment to lead the British expedition to the Pacific destination. The Endeavor was a Whitby merchant collier, launched in 1764 as The Earl of Pembroke and purchased by the British Navy for the expedition. She was refitted at Deptford on the Thames, with a third internal deck installed and new cabins provided. The Endeavor weighed 368 tons, was 106 feet long and 29 feet wide. She could only make seven or eight knots but could keep the pace steady. Captain Cook and the Endeavor set sail on August 17, 1768 and arrived in Tahiti in time to make the necessary observations of the transit of Venus, thereby advancing the knowledge of world geography. The scientific mission a success, Captain Cook continued his explorations of the Pacific Islands for the next three years. D. Bailey is the President of 1-World Globes & Maps. Visit their websites: www.1worldglobes.com and www. worldmapsonline.com.
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