The French Académie des Sciences organized a total of ten expeditions to observe the transit of Venus in 1882, including parties that set up in Haiti, Martinique, Mexico, Florida, Chile, and Cape Horn. The expedition to Santa Cruz on the Patagonian (Argentine) coast was led by the naval officer Georges-Ernest Fleuriais (1840-1895), director of the Cartography Department of the French Navy. Aboard the ship Volage, Fleuriais sailed to Argentina and made observations of the transit just before Venus passed its ascending node on December 6, 1882. The 31 albumen photographs bound into the album titled "Passage de Venus 1882 -- Mission de Santa Cruz (Patagonie)" document a French astronomical expedition of that year to the Argentine coast. Rather than photographs of the transit itself, the album contains images of the members of the expedition, the crew of the Volage, and the base camp. Only a few images contain captions (written in pencil on the mount).