PREFACE 
My principal motive for editing the Journal kept by Sir 
Joseph Banks during Lieutenant Cook’s first voyage round 
the world is to give prominence to his indefatigable labours 
as an accomplished observer and ardent collector during the 
whole period occupied by that expedition, and thus to pre- 
sent him as the pioneer of those naturalist voyagers of later 
years, of whom Darwin is the great example. 
This appears to me to be the more desirable, because in 
no biographical notice of Banks are his labours and studies 
as a working naturalist adequately set forth. Indeed, the 
only allusion I can find to their literally enormous extent 
and value is in the interesting letter from Linneus to Ellis, 
which will be found on p. xl. In respect of Cook’s first 
voyage this is in a measure due to the course pursued by 
Dr. Hawkesworth in publishing the account of the expedi- 
tion, when Banks, with singular disinterestedness, placed his 
Journal in that editor’s hands, with permission to make 
what use of it he thought proper. The result was that 
Hawkesworth! selected only such portions as would interest 
1 Dr. Hawkesworth devotes his ‘‘Introduction to the First Voyage” 
almost exclusively to the services which Banks rendered, and gratefully 
acknowledges that all such details as are not directly connected with navi- 
gation are extracted from the diary of that naturalist. But for the purpose 
of identifying the work of each observer this is insufficient, and barely does 
justice to the second of the two authors, who is in reality responsible for 
the greater portion of the book. In reference to Hawkesworth being 
employed as editor of Cook’s Journal, the following passage is extracted 
