332 Geography. 



century. Captain James Cook, of Great-Britain, 

 ought undoubtedly to be viewed as the most illustri- 

 ous, whether we consider the extent or the usefulness 

 of his enterprises. His three voyages, undertaken by 

 order, and at the expense of the British government, 

 and performed between the years 1768 and 1779, 

 were productive of a vast fund of knowledge, 

 equally interesting and valuable, concerning the 

 various parts of the world which he visited. He 

 collected important original information, respect- 

 ing islands and coasts long before discovered, and 

 supposed to be well known. He discovered many 

 others which had never been before visited by any 

 European. And even where the honour of disco- 

 very could not be strictly ascribed to him, yet he 

 observed with such accuracy, and described with 

 such faithfulness, that the interests of science, of 

 commerce, and of humanity, are perhaps more 

 eminently indebted to him, than to any other indi- 

 vidual in the same sphere of action, since the 

 days of Columbus. 



The discoveries made by this celebrated circum- 

 navigator were numerous. He ascertained that the 

 idea, so long and fondly cherished by geographers, 

 of the existence of a great southern continent, was 

 either entirely without foundation; or, that if such 

 a continent existed at all, it must be given up as 

 inaccessible and useless to man. He demonstrated 

 the impracticability of a north-west passage to 

 India, which had been for so many generations 

 an object of solicitude and pursuit, and which 

 the attempts to discover had cost so many expen- 

 sive voyages and lives. He fully ascertained the 

 vicinity of Asia to the American continent, and 

 thus determined the probability of the latter having 

 been peopled from the former.^" He discovered a 



g Before the discovery of the vicinity of tiis Asiatic continent to Ame- 

 rica it had long been considered a tpestion of diiTicult solution, how the 



