520 INTRODUCTION TO THE- , 



signal services performed by Captain Cook during 

 his first voyage, of which we have given the outlines, 

 marked him as the fittest person to finish an exami- 

 nation which lie had already so skilfully executed in 

 part. Accordingly, lie was sent out in 1772> with 

 two ships, the Resolution and Adventure, upon the 

 most enlarged plan of discovery known in the annals 

 of navigation ; for he was instructed, not only to 

 circumnavigate the whole globe, but to circumnavi- 

 gate it in high southern latitudes, making such 

 traverses, from time to time, into every corner of the 

 Pacific Ocean not before examined, as might finally 

 and effectually resolve the much agitated question 

 about the existence of a southern continent in anypart 

 of the southern hemisphere accessible by navigation. 

 The ample accessions to geography, by the dis- 

 covery of many islands within the tropic in the Pacific 

 Ocean, in the course of this voyage, which was 

 carried on with singular perseverance between three 

 and four years, have been already stated to the reader. 

 But the general search now made throughout the 

 whole southern hemisphere, as being the principal 

 object in view, hath been reserved for this separate 

 article. Here, indeed, we are not to take notice of 

 lands that have been discovered, but of seas sailed 

 through, where lands had been supposed to exist. 

 In tracing the route of the Resolution and Adventure 

 throughout the South Atlantic, the South Indian, and 

 the South Pacific Oceans that environ the globe, and 

 combining it with the route of the Endeavour, we re- 

 ceive what may be called ocular demonstration, that 

 Captain Cook, in his persevering researches, sailed 

 over many an extensive continent, which, though 

 supposed to have been seen by former navigators, at 

 the approach of his ships, sunk into the bosom of 

 the ocean, and, " like the baseless fabric of a visio7i y left 

 not a wreck behind."* It has been urged, that theex- 



* It must be observed, however, that Monsieur le Monier, in the 

 Memoirs of the French Academy of Sciences for 1776, pleads for 



