Feb. 13, 1870] 



NATURE 



335 



that that continent was unconnected with New Guinea, 

 and above all, dispelled the long-lived illusion of a great 

 southern continent, having been the first to cross the Ant- 

 arctic Circle. At high south latitudes he sailed nearly all 

 round the confines of the Antarctic, adding greatly to a ; 

 knowledge of the geography of this unknown region, and 

 proving once for all, as we have said, that a "great 

 -outhern continent" was a delusion, at least outside the 

 Antarctic Circle. A comparison of the maps of 1762 and 

 1785 will serve to show how much was accomplished by 

 Cook in this direction. In his second voyage of three 

 years, 1772-75, Cook sailed over 20,000 leagues in the 

 Pacific and Southern Oceans. And it was not only geogra- 

 phical knowledge that was thus advanced by his skill and 

 determination. He was always accompanied by a staff of j 

 I scientific specialists, to whom he gave every opportunity , 

 ' of pursuing research in their own departments, and thus of ; 

 adding enormously to a knowledge of the natural history | 

 (in its widest sense) of great tracts of our globe. In the , 

 Transit expedition, for example, he was accompanied by 

 the young Joseph Banks as naturalist. His third, and 

 fatal voyage, was undertaken mainly for the discovery of a 

 North-West Passage, Cook and Capt. Clarke sailing in the 

 Resolution and Discovery from Plymouth in July, 1776, and 

 after a roundabout voyage by the South Pacific, the Sand- 

 wich Islands were discovered on January 18, 1778. After 

 attempting to penetrate the Arctic Ocean, he was com- : 

 pelled to turn back, and resolved to spend the winter in ; 

 completing the survey of the Sandwich Islands. Here, ; 

 as almost everj^vhere else that he went. Cook won the ; 

 hearts of the natives by his gentle, firm, and perfectly 

 upright dealing, in this respect being a pattern to all 

 explorers. The end is too well known, and we need . 

 not repeat the details of the sad event which hap- 1 

 pened at Karakakooa Bay, on the south side of 

 Hawaii, on February 14, 1779. No blame can 

 be attributed to Cook, and, probably, very little to 

 the natives themselves. Had the lieutenant who accom- 

 panied Cook on shore, and the sailors themselves, pos- 

 sessed a little of his tact and true bravery the catastrophe 

 might have been prevented. There is reason to believe 

 that the islanders regarded Cook as a sort of superior 

 being, a kind of heaven-sent messenger whom they half- 

 expected, and that they actually worshipped him as a 

 god. Indeed it has been said that it was only when the 

 first stunning blow from a club proved him human that 

 their chagrin and disappointment vented themselves in 

 barbarous massacre. There seems no doubt that the 

 natives were sincerely sorry for what had occurred, and 

 continued to worship his memor}', if not his bones, for 

 long after. It is commonly stated that his remains were 

 obtained and buried in the sea, but we would refer our 

 readers to a remarkable story published in Nature, 

 vol. viii. p. 211. From this it would seem that the large 

 bones of Cook's body had been retained by the islanders, \ 

 and tended and enshrined as those of a hero, if not of a 1 

 deity. WTiatever amount of truth there may be in the I 

 details of this story, it, along with other evidence, tends 

 to prove that the catastrophe was a sad mistake, regretted .. 

 by none more than the natives themselves. i 



tc Cook's instincts were thoroughly scientific, and he did 

 i all that his circumstances would admit of to qualify himself 

 % to carry on his great and important work on the basis of 



scientific principles. The results show that all things 

 considered science profited largely by his labours, and 

 that to-morrow a foreign society will strive to keep green 

 the memory of one of England's most scientific navigators, 

 one of her ablest and most lovable sons. 



THE SAMOAN LANGUAGE 

 A Grammar and Dictionary of the Samoan Language. 



By the Rev. George Pratt. Second Edition. Edited 



by the Rev. S. J. Whitraee, F.R.G.S. (Trubner and 



Co., 1878.) 

 'X'HIS is perhaps as complete a guide to the study of 

 the Samoan language as could be expected under 

 the circumstances. It consists, properly, of four parts : 

 a grammar, which, for obvious reasons, is necessarily 

 disappointing; a chapter on the native poetr}-, which 

 would be much more useful were the specimens given 

 accompanied by a translation, or at least by more copious 

 notes ; an English-Samoan vocabulary of about 4,500 

 fairly well-selected words, and a Samoan-English dic- 

 tionar>' of more than double that number of terms. The 

 editor informs us that many of the names of the indi- 

 genous flora and fauna collected by him still remain to 

 be published. They will doubtless be embodied in the 

 large "Comparative Polj-nesian Dictionary" he is now 

 preparing, and when this is done we shall have at last a 

 well-nigh complete dictionary of the most typical of the 

 eastern Pol}Tiesian languages. 



The grammatical portion of the work, notwithstanding 

 the many extremely usefvd and suggestive additions of 

 the editor, still leaves so much to be desired that we 

 cannot but regret he did not re-cast this whole section, 

 and give us a treatise more in harmony with the present 

 state of linguistic studies. When we read in Mr. Pratt's 

 preface that he was led to prepare a Samoan syntax 

 "by observing, while reading Nordheimer's Hebrew 

 grammar, that the Samoan in many points resembled 

 the Hebrew," we feel at once that it would be hope- 

 less to expect from him a sound exposition of 

 the structure of this language, and the most cursory 

 glance fully confirms this anticipation, Hebrew is 

 a member of the Semitic family of languages, and 

 is consequently an inflecting tongue. Hence it can 

 have nothing beyond mere coincidences in common with 

 the Eastern Polynesian group, which has scarcely yet 

 got much beyond the isolating state, of which Chinese is 

 typical. Its position, in fact, is quite unique, and until 

 its true character is thoroughly realised we shall never 

 get a rational treatment of the subject. This obvious 

 truth was largely recognised by Gaussin, which at once 

 explains the satisfactory nature of his work. Had it 

 been based on the Samoan instead of on the Tahitian and 

 Marquesan dialects, the result would doubtless have been 

 still more satisfactory, and he would have avoided some 

 of the misconceptions which detract fi-om the value of 

 that treatise. Yet even so it incidentally throws more 

 light on the real genius of the Samoan itself than does 

 the present work. Here the treatment of the verb is 

 especially meagre and irrational. The schemes of tense 

 and mood occupy less than two pages, and each tense is 

 illustrated by a different verb, pule (rule) for the present, 

 al0fa (love) for the imperfect, sao (escape) for the perfect. 



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