Oha1».V.] Geography. S5 



fore visited by any. European. And even where 

 the honour of discovery could not be strictly 

 ascribed to him, yet he observed with such accu- 

 racy, 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 individual in the same sphere of ac- 

 tion, 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 geogra- 

 phers, of the existence of a great southern conti- 

 nent, 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 the attempts to discover which had cost so 

 many lives and expensive voyages. He fully ascer- 

 tained the vicinity of Asia to the American con- 

 tinent, and thus determined the probability of the 

 latter having been peopled from the former*. He 



* Before tlie discovery of the vicinity of the Asiatic continent 

 to America it had long been considered a question of difficult 

 solution, how the latter became peopled, as the general Deluge 

 destroyed all the inhabitants of the earth, excepting those who 

 were miraculously preserved with Noah in the Ark, which is 

 generally supposed, after the subsidence of the waters, to have 

 rested on a mountain of Asia. So formidable did this difficulty 

 appear to some, that it led them to renounce their belief in the 

 sacred history. It is true, several plausible, and even probable 

 suppositions might be made to avoid this impious alternative; 

 but the discoveries of Cook, and succeeding navigators, show that 

 there is no difficulty in the case. The t';^o continents are now 



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