HVDROCRAIMIKk's l)i:rARTMF-:NT OF TUF". ADMIKALTV. 383 



fly sweeping like swallows and very near llie water. They are not so 

 often seen in fair weather; being foul-weather birds, as our seamen call 

 them, and presaging a storm wlien they come about a ship, who for that 

 reason don't love to see tlieni. In a storm they will hover close under the 

 ^liip's stern, in the wake of tlie sliip (as 'tis called) or the smoothness 

 which the ship's passing has made upon the sea. And tliere as they fly 

 (gently then) they pat the water alternately witli tlieir feet, as if they 

 walked upon it, tho' still upon tiiewing. And from lience the seamen give 

 ihem the name of " petrels." in allusion to St. Peter's walking upon the 

 Lake of Gennesaretli. 



Appendix III. 



James Cook was born in 1728, the son of a labourer, in the 

 Cleveland division of Yorkshire. Apprenticed first to a haber- 

 dasher at Staithes, he afterw^ards served as an apprentice on a 

 little ship called the True Love, of Whitby, in the North Sea coal 

 trade, rising to foremast hand, and then to mate. 



In 1755 he joined the Navy, and, four years later, became 

 master, and served in various small shii)S of war on the North 

 .\merican .Stati(jn. He surveyed the St. Lawrence and the coast 

 of Newfoundland, and prepared a chart, from Quebec to the sea. 

 In 1763 he was appointed marine surveyor of the coast of New- 

 foundland and Labrador, and in i76<S Ijrought out a volume of 

 sailing directions which showed remarkable ability. As a result, 

 he was selected, in this year, to command the Endeavour, de- 

 spatched to observe the transit of V^enus in the South Seas, and 

 on this voyage he mapped the coast and harbours of Tahiti. 



The excellent ciiart b.istd on Codk's survey was the <jnly guide in these 

 waters for over 100 years, and the accuracy of his positions was extra- 

 ordinary. 



b>om the Fiji Islands he pnjcceded to New Zealand, and 

 surveyed 24,000 miles of coast in six and a half months. 

 Never has a coast been so well laid down by a first explorer. 

 He then proceeded to New South Wales, and carried out a run- 

 ning survey of the East Coast of Australia with the same minute- 

 ness and accuracy, returning home by way of Batavia and the 

 Cape. The whole of the work of this voyage was carried out 

 without chronometers, for the Endeavour carried none. 



In 1772 he started on his second voyage, and, after touching 

 at the Cape, he crossed the Antarctic Circle, and proceeded to 

 New Zealand, proving that the alleged Southern Continent did 

 not exist. Thence he worked up and down across the South 

 Pacific, finding no land there also, and, turning North, he sailed 

 to Raster Island and on to the Marquesas, Tonga Islands, and 

 Tahiti. Thence to the New Hebrides, 



Of wliich for some of tlie Islanfls Iiis cliart is still the onlv one in 

 existence and of remarkable accuracy. On several occasions up to 1893 

 Cook's recorded positions have saved the adojjtion of so-called amendments 

 wdiich would have been anything but amendments in reality.* 



* C. R. Markham. 



