Global Positioning System Reference
In-Depth Information
undertaken) because of Cook's enlightened ideas. He experimented with
di√erent foods, such as sauerkraut and fresh fruit, and insisted that each
crew member partake his share.
After the transit was observed, Cook opened secret Admiralty orders
which instructed him to head further south and search for the supposed
Terra Australis Incognita
—the unknown southern continent that Ptolemy,
sixteen centuries earlier, had supposed existed. If he failed to find this new
continent, Cook was to explore Australia.
He circumnavigated and charted New Zealand for five months and
then, no new continent having been found, carefully surveyed 2,000 miles
of eastern Australia (during this time Banks named Botany Bay).
Endeav-
our
struck the very treacherous Great Barrier Reef, eventually floating free.
Cook wrote in his journal: ''To those only who have waited in a state of such
suspense, death has approached in all his terrors. . . . Every one saw his own
sensations pictured in the countenances of his companions; however, the
capstan and windlass were manned with as many hands as could be spared
from the pumps; and the ship . . . was heaved into deep water.''
8
On the way
back to England,
Endeavour
put in to the Dutch colony at Batavia (Jakarta)
for much-needed and extensive repairs, during which time 40 of the crew
died from malaria or dysentery (but none from scurvy). Cook arrived in
Plymouth in June 1771.
Cook conducted a second voyage of exploration from July 1772 to July
1775, again searching for the famed ice-free southern continent, this time
establishing that it did not exist. He charted the lands he did encounter,
including the island of South Georgia (fig. 7.5a). He discovered Easter
Island (for Europe) and returned home after traveling 70,000 miles. The
third expedition was intended to find the Northwest Passage across the top
of Canada. For these explorations he wintered in Hawaii, where he was
killed by indigenous people. He is remembered for providing a compre-
hensive map of the Pacific, for banishing the persistent myth about Terra
Australis Incognita, for leaving detailed journals, and for bringing home
much information about the people, the animals, and the plants on the
other side of the world. As with Columbus, Cook's likeness is preserved in
statues all over the world (see fig. 7.5b for an example).
9
8. Brown (2003).
9. According to the Captain Cook Society website, there are at least 23 Cook statues
around the world—in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Russia, the United Kingdom, and
the United States—plus hundreds of other memorials such as library and building names,
street names, plaques, and columns.
