ATLAS OF REMOTE ISLANDS
Campbell Island

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(New Zealand)

Pacific Ocean

52° 32' S | 169° 9' E

113.3 km² | uninhabited

ON 8 DECEMBER 1874 the sky clouds over; that night the weather is unsettled and it is misty. // There is a 60 per cent likelihood of being able to view the start of the transit of Venus here, and a 30 per cent chance of seeing the end: so Captain Jacquemart calculated when he spent nearly the whole of the previous December on the island. // Based on his findings, the Académie des Sciences decided to send an expedition here to view the transit. Sponsored by the government, the expensively equipped party leaves Marseille on 21 June, led by Anatole Bouquet de la Grye of the naval Hydrographic Office. // When Campbell Island finally appears out of the mist on 9 September, the men's first impression is of a sad place: a barren, treeless land with a plateau of straggly yellow bushes in the north and oddly shaped peaks in the south; the fjord of Perseverance Harbour in the middle. // On the morning of g December, the wind blows from the north-west, bringing scattered showers at about ten o’clock. The sky remains a solid grey until the warmth of the sun lightens the mist a little and its white disc finally appears behind the thick veil. Five minutes before Venus is to make its transit, the wind dies down. Bouquet de la Grye peeps through the eyepiece of the telescope at noon and cheers when he sees a dark patch at the edge of the sun: faint and jagged. It is Venus. Then a great cloud hides this rare event for more than a quarter of an hour. When it is gone, Venus is already covering half the sun. The outline of the planet is now quite distinct, entirely free of refractions of light or a halo. But this moment of clarity lasts no more than twenty seconds. // Then it is all over. Banks of fog roll in, making it impossible to see the sun again. When it clears hours later, Venus has long since disappeared into the sky.