Several explorers before Cook had shown the envisioned continent to be smaller by virtue of sailing through areas anticipated by these earlier maps to be part of this land. Cook himself did this first on his way to Tahiti in 1769. He was unique for his day in his more realistic estimate of the size of Antarctica, the actual southern continent. James Cook was born in 1728 – the year Vitus Bering discovered the important passage that was named the Bering Strait after him. Fifty years later, Cook would also be drawn to that location. One of the assignments Cook was to carry out during his first voyage around the world was to observe an exceptional astrological event:

Provençal Atlas of the Mediterranean Augustin Roussin, 1633 Parchment, 27.7 x 39.4 cm