CAPTAIN COOK. 



47 



Great Southern Continent had no foundation, unless it was close around the Pole and so 

 beyond the reach of ships; he discovered and explored a great part of the coast of 

 New Caledonia, the largest island in the South Pacific next to New Zealand ; he found 

 the desolate island of Georgia, and Sandwichland, the southernmost land yet known; he 



SHAKESPEARE HEAD, MERCURY BAY, NEW ZEALAND. 



THE HEADLAND ON WHICH CAPTAIN COOK ERECTED HIS OBSERVATORY. 



discovered the fair and fertile archipelago called the Sandwich Islands ; he explored 

 three thousand five hundred miles of the North American Coast, and he traversed the 

 icy seas of the North Pacific, as he had done in the south, in search of the passage 

 which he failed to discover. All this, without counting the small islands which he found 

 scattered about the Pacific. Again, he not only proved the existence of these islands, 

 but he was in advance of his age in the observations and the minute examination which 

 he made into the religion, manners, customs, arts, and language of the natives wherever 

 he went. It was he who directed these inquiries, and he was himself the principal 



