NavList:

Dear Wolfgang,

Thank’s for your coments and for attaching document with reference to Green's letter. Your (and Frank’s) explanations regarding Green’s letter is very believable. I myself have not studied Cook’s papers very deeply, but I know that many popular articles about  “Endeavour” voyage exaggerate Cook’s contribution to lunar observations that were made during this expedition. After reading some of them it seams that Cook was lunar observation genius. But it is not true, of course. The most part of the work was done by Mr. Green. And I am not surprised to hear that Cook learned Lunars only on board HMB“Endeavour”. (In fact I have never thought before about fact where Cook had learned Lunars. This discussion here in NavList revealed some interesting historic facts).    

And I fully agree with you about Cook and Newfoundland. I think— if he had made lunar observations during this period of time, there would be some written evidence (as in case of  1766 solar eclipse).  At least N. Maskelyne would have used this fact to price his advocated lunar method : )

You wrote:

“And by the way, it would be helpful if you would give an indication of the origin of your images (in the case of your picture from the Flinders logbook”.

Could you, please, clarify what images you meant? Or may be you meant books which I refered to in the text of my post?

Modris Fersters