THE RESULTS OF COOK'S VOYAGES. 511 



first voyage he discovered the Society Islands, determined the 

 insular character of New Zealand, discovered the straits which 

 cut that island in halves, and made a complete survey of both 

 portions. He explored the eastern coast of New Holland, gave 

 Botany Bay its name, and surveyed an extent of upward of two 

 thousand miles. In his second voyage he resolved the problem 

 of a Southern continent, having traversed that hemisphere in 

 such a manner as to leave no probability of its existence, unless 

 near the Pole, out of the reach of navigation and beyond the 

 habitable limits of the globe. He discovered New Caledonia, 

 the largest island in the South Pacific except New Zealand ; 

 he settled the situations of numerous old discoveries, rectifying 

 their longitude and remodelling all the charts. On his third 

 voyage he discovered, to the north of the equator, the group 

 called the Sandwich Islands, — a discovery which, all things 

 considered, and from their situation and products, may be said 

 to be the most important acquisition ever made in the Pa- 

 cific. He explored what had hitherto remained unknown of the 

 western coast of America, — an extent of three thousand five 

 hundred miles, — and ascertained the proximity of the two great 

 continents of Asia and America. "In short," says King, "if 

 we except the Sea of Amur, and the Japanese Archipelago, 

 which still remain imperfectly known to the Europeans, he has 

 completed the hydrography of the habitable globe." After 

 Christopher Columbus, Cook acquired, and now, at a distance 

 of nearly a century, still enjoys, the highest degree of popularity 

 which ever fell to the lot of a navigator and discoverer. 



