462 



THE DISCOVERY OF AUSTRALIA 



Cook and 

 Furneaux 

 sail, June 

 1772. 



Antarctic 

 exploration. 



has had in making this tour, but having had your com- 

 pany.' " l The hot-tempered generous Banks knew Cook 

 too well to make a "coolness" into a quarrel. When Cook 

 returned, the Royal Society awarded him the Prize Medal 

 of the year. " I am obliged," he wrote to Banks, " to 

 you and my other good friends for this unmerited honour." 

 In 1784 Banks himself was President of the Royal Society, 

 and he wrote a letter to Mrs. Cook requesting her to accept 

 from the Fellows of the Society " a medal in gold struck 

 in honour of your late husband." " As his friend, I 

 rejoin to yours my sincere regret for the loss this nation 

 has suffered in the death of so valuable a man, and that 

 which the Royal Society feels in so valuable a member." 

 The words were formal, but they would have satisfied 

 Cook, and he would have liked the word " friend." 

 The two ships sailed in June 1772. Cook commanded 

 the Resolution. The Captain of the Adventure was Fur- 

 neaux, who had sailed under Wallis in the Dolphin. In 

 November they left the Cape, and plunged South in search 

 of the land which Bouvet had believed to be a promontory 

 of the Southern Continent, and had called Cape Circum- 

 cision. There followed the first chapter in the story of 

 Antarctic exploration. Hilly islands of ice two miles 

 in circuit came into sight, and were sometimes mistaken 

 for land ; "a view that for a few minutes was pleasing 

 to the eye, but, when we reflected on the danger, the mind 

 was filled with horror ; were a ship to get against the 

 weather side of one of those islands when the sea runs 

 high, she would be dashed to pieces in a moment." The 

 ice-islands threatened to close in upon them, and " pack 

 them " ; and a man who had been in the Greenland trade 

 told how they had been " packed " for six or nine weeks. 

 Then there appeared " an immense field of low ice," to 

 which they could see no end. They tried to round it, 

 but again and again found themselves " quite embayed." 

 They sailed through broken ice that reminded Cook of 

 the Coral Islands of the Tropical Pacific. With admirable 

 persistence he fought his way South to 67. Enderby 



1 Hooker, p. x~xviii. 



