JAMES COOK 5 



Kerguelen-Tremarec, which led to the discovery of Bouvet 

 Island, the Crozets, and Kerguelen, and collected much 

 further evidence to show the great extent of the Southern Seas. 



During the latter half of the eighteenth century there came 

 a marked change in the objects which were set before the 

 Southern voyagers. Hitherto men seemed to have thought of 

 little but the aggrandisement of themselves or their State by 

 the discovery of some new America ; but now for the first 

 time we find an eagerness in exploration for its own sake. 

 Science had made rapid strides, and it was felt that its ends 

 should be furthered by a completer knowledge of the distribu- 

 tion of land and water on our globe, and by an investigation 

 of natural phenomena in its less-known regions. This new 

 view of exploration was held most strongly in France and 

 England, and both Marion and Kerguelen in their voyages in 

 1 77 1-2 were accompanied by a staff of learned men whose 

 sole object was to add to the scientific knowledge of the 

 regions visited. Curiously enough, the last of these voyagers, 

 starting as he did under these more favourable conditions for 

 exploration, succeeded in retarding rather than in advancing 

 the cause of geography, for he interpreted the island which 

 bears his name as part of a larger land mass, and boldly con- 

 cluded that the great Southern continent had at last been 

 found. 



But this error, with many another, was soon to be rectified, 

 and the whole mythical conception of the Southern continent 

 to be swept away once and for all, when the great English 

 navigator James Cook made known the results of his famous 

 voyages. To give even a summary of the far-reaching effects 

 of these wonderful voyages is beyond the scope of this chapter, 

 but it may be briefly noted how each bore on the Antarctic 

 problem that is before us. 



In his first voyage, in 1768, Cook circumnavigated New 

 Zealand and laid down the eastern coast of New Holland, thus 

 definitely cutting off these lands from any connection with the 

 Southern Regions ; this alone cleared up great misconceptions, 

 but speculative geography continued to suggest that there was 



