VOYAGE TO THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 21 



istence of a southern continent is necessary to pre- 

 serve an equilibrium between tiie two hemispheres, 



the existence of Cape Circumcision, seen by Bouvet in 1738, 

 which our English navigator sought for in vain, and supposes to 

 have been only an island of ice. Mr. Wales, in a paper read be- 

 fore the Royal Society, very forcibly replied to M. le Monier's 

 objections ; and the attack having been repeated, he has drawn up 

 a more extended defence of this part of Captain Cook's Journal, 

 which he hath very obligingly communicated, and is here insertedi 



Arguments, tending to prove that Captain Cook sought for Cape 

 Circumcision under the proper Meridian ; and that the objections 

 "which have been made to his conduct, in this respect, are not well 

 founded. 



In the Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris for 

 1776, printed in 1779, M. Le Monier has made some remarks with 

 a design to show that Captain Cook sought the land, usually called 

 Cape Circumcision, in a wrong place ; and that, instead of looking 

 for it under the meridian of 9^ or 10" of east longitude, he ought 

 to have looked for it under a meridian which is only 3, or 3^ to 

 the eastward of the meridian of Greenwich ; and consequently that 

 this land may exist, notwithstanding all that has yet been done to 

 find it. M. Le Monier has also two additional Memoirs on the 

 same subject, in the volume for 1779, occasioned, as it appears, 

 by some objections which have been made to his former Memoir 

 before the Academy. For some reason or other, the Academy 

 lias not thought proper to print the objections which have been 

 made to M. Le Monier 's hypothesis ; nor has he been particular 

 enough in his two Memoirs which reply to them, to enable me to 

 say of what importance the objections are. I can only gather, 

 that they contain some exceptions to the quantity by which M. Le 

 Monier asserts the variation alters in 10 of longitude, under the 

 parallel of 54 south ; and which, 1 conceive, has little to do ia 

 the dispute. 



Whether the land, usually called Cape Circumcision, exists or 

 not, is a point of small importance to geography ; as the most 

 strenuous asserters of its existence must allow it to be a very incon- 

 siderable island, and of no use. This, therefore, is not in itself 

 a matter worthy of dispute ; but in asserting this, M. Le Monier 

 has, and I am sorry to observe it, with some asperity too, par- 

 ticularly in his second Memoir, endeavoured to censure the judg- 

 ment and conduct of Captain Cook, whose memory I have every 

 reason to revere, as well as the judgment of those who were with 

 him; and, on this account, I cannot help feeling myself called on 

 to explain the motives which induced Captain Cook to place no 

 dependence on the arguments now adduced by M. Le Monier in 

 support of his supposition; and which, M. Le Monier must know, 



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