VOYAGE TO THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 15 



pose of inquiry ; and, to use Captain Cook's words, 

 who bore so considerable a share in those discoveries, 

 have left little more to be done in that part,* 



3, Byron, Wallis, and Carteret, had each of them 

 contributed toward increasing our knowledge of the 

 islands that exist in the Pacific Ocean, within the 

 limits of the southern tropic ; but how far that ocean 

 reached to the west, what lands bounded it on that 

 side, and the connection of those lands with the dis- 

 coveries of former navigators, was still the reproach 

 of geographers, and remained absolutely unknown, 

 till Captain Cook, during his first voyage in 1770 1, 

 brought back the most satisfactory decision of this 

 important question. With a wonderful perseverance, 

 and consummate skill, amidst an uncommon combin- 

 ation of perplexities and dangers, he traced this 

 coast near two thousand miles from the 38 of South 

 latitude, cross the tropic, to its northern extremity, 

 within 10^- of the equinoctial, where it was found to 

 join the lands already explored by the Dutch, in se- 

 veral voyages from their Asiatic settlements, and to 

 which they have given the name of New Holland. 

 Those discoveries made in the last century, before 

 Tasman's voyage, had traced the north and the west 

 coasts of this land ; and Captain Cook, by his exten- 

 sive operations on its east side, left little to be done 

 toward completing the full circuit of it. Between 

 Cape Hicks, in latitude 88, where his examination 

 of this coast began, and that part of Van Diemen's 

 Land, from whence Tasman took his departure, was 

 not above fifty-five leagues. It was highly probable, 

 therefore, that they were connected ; though Captain 

 Cook cautiously says, that he could not determine 

 whether his New South Wales, that is, the East Coast 

 of New Holland, joins to Van Diemen's Land, orno.t 

 But what was thus left undetermined by the opera- 



* Vol. iv. p. 219. t See vols. i. and ii. 



% See vol. ii. p. 69. 



