page_title: 1874 Transit of Venus Expedition to Campbell Island
section_title: Campbell Island
hierarchical_section_title: 1874 Transit of Venus Expedition to Campbell Island / Campbell Island
caption_attribution_description: English: View of observatory established on Campbell Island, New Zealand, in 1874 by the French Transit of Venus expedition there.
context_page_description: The 1874 Transit of Venus Expedition to Campbell Island was an astronomical expedition by French scientists to observe 9 December 1874 transit of Venus on subantarctic Campbell Island in the Southern Ocean some 600 km south of New Zealand. It was one of several such scientific expeditions from various countries sent around the world to observe the rare astronomical event.
context_section_description: After briefly checking North East Harbour and rejecting it as a venue for their work, they continued to Perseverance Harbour and Garden Cove.  There, finding that there was insufficient space for their encampment and equipment and that nothing had survived in the vegetable garden except for a few cabbages, they set up their camp in Venus Bay instead.
  September was occupied by unloading the Vire, erecting several prefabricated buildings and constructing a 20 m stone jetty.  Pens were built for the sheep and pigs brought as food.  On 22 September one of the technicians, Paul Duris, died of typhoid fever and was buried on the point opposite Venus Bay.  The encampment was ready for occupation on 1 October.  From mid October until mid November the Vire was away and the expedition members filled their time testing their equipment and repairing that which had been damaged on the outward voyage.  Filhol collected natural history specimens and observed the wildlife.  The weather was not helpful; the expedition endured a series of storms which caused damage to the buildings.
  On 9 December the skies were cloudy, though as the time of the transit approached the sun appeared briefly giving the observers a view of Venus against the sun's corona  – a view obscured by clouds at the moment of first contact.  They also had a twenty-second view of Venus at the end of the transit between third and fourth contacts as it was half off the sun's disc.  No useful measurements were able to be made.
  It took three weeks for the expedition to dismantle their camp and load the ship.  They departed on 28 December.  Although observations and measurements of the transit had been unsuccessful, Filhol published a comprehensive account of his examination of the natural history of the island, while the chart produced by the naval officers subsequently formed the basis of maps of the island and British Admiralty charts for several decades.  Many geographic features were named by the expedition after its own personnel and members of the transit committee in Paris, as well as for other expedition-related objects, including:
  
  
   
  Courrejolles Point
  De la Vire Point
  Filhol Peak
  Garden Cove
  Jacquemart Island
   
  Mount Azimuth
  Mount Dumas
  Mount Faye
  Mount Fizeau
   
  Mount Paris
  Puiseux Peak
  Venus Bay
  Yvon Villarceau Peak
caption: Observatory built by the expedition on Campbell Island, 1874.
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