420 THE DISCOVERY OF AUSTRALIA 



Dr. Solander found in this place occasioned my giving 

 it the name of Botany Bay." The passage is curious 

 because the second sentence is not what the first sentence 

 would lead us to expect. It was time to name the Bay, 

 and the first sentence suggests that the catch of gigantic 

 stingrays occasioned Cook to give it the name of Stingray 

 Bay. And, when we look at the passage which Cook 

 wrote in his Log on the evening of the 6th of May, we 

 find that this was the case. He wrote down the sentence 

 about the catching of stingrays, which was afterwards 

 copied into the Journal ; and then in the next sentence 

 he wrote, exactly as we would expect a logical Scotchman 

 to write, ' The great quantity of these sort of fishes 

 found in this place occasioned my giving it the name 

 of Stingray Harbour." And when we look at the manu- 

 script copy of Cook's Journal written in the handwriting 

 of a clerk, but signed by Cook's hand we find that 

 here also the name first written was Stingray Harbour. 

 But we observe that the clerk has re-written his 

 sentence, and has changed " fishes " into " plants," 

 and " Stingray " into " Bottany." x It seems clear that, 

 before this copy of the Journal was sent home from Batavia, 

 Banks had persuaded Cook that the fame of the Bay 

 was not in its perished Stingrays but in its immortal 

 Botany. 2 So the clerk was told to turn over the pages 



1 " These sort of fishes " and " Stingray " are erased, and " plants 

 Mr. Banks " and " Bottany " are written in their places. " And Dr. 

 Solander " is written above the line. See photo, p. 421. 



2 Mr. Kitson, in the 1912 popular edition of his Life of Cook, p. 149, 

 says that " the only page known to exist of the Journal of the first 

 voyage written by Cook " has, under 6th May, 1770, the following 

 sentence : " The great number of New Plants etc. our Gentlemen 

 Botanists have collected in this place occasioned my giving in (sic) the 

 name of Botanist Bay." 



It is unlucky that Mr. Kitson omitted to mention that this sentence 

 was written over another sentence which had been partially erased. 

 What Cook first wrote was as follows : " Sunday 6th. In the evening 

 the yawl returned with two stingrays one of them weighed and 



the other exclusive of the tails and entrails. The great 



number (erasure) fish found at this place occasioned my naming it 

 Sting Ray^Bay." The passage seems to show that the first change 

 was to Botanist. Banks, in the Journal now at Auckland, which seems 

 to be mainly a digest of Cook's Journal, wrote Botanists Bay. Later 



