86 SIEGE OF THE SOUTH POLE 
Copley medal, not for his discoveries in geography, but 
for this demonstration in hygiene. 
Dalrymple was vanquished, but he held his peace; 
he had returned to India in a high official position, 
and on his retirement from the East India Company's 
service, he sunk his old differences with the Admiralty 
and became its first hydrographer, when that office was 
instituted in 1795. Eleven years later he was dismissed 
for some characteristic excess of zeal, and died of a 
broken heart. 
It is interesting to speculate as to what the result might 
have been if instead of leaving the wide section south of 
New Zealand unvisited, because from the direction of the 
wind he believed there was no land there unless it lay 
very far to the south, Cook had endeavoured to push 
south to the southward, say of Tasmania. He might 
have found a clear sea and discovered the coast of Vic- 
toria Land. He might, probably enough, have been 
frozen in the pack, and with his inadequate provision for 
meeting the added strain of cold and darkness, it is not 
too much to say that the chance of his escape would have 
been small indeed. 
The only honour bestowed on Cook by the government 
for his stupendous service to science and to his country, 
was a step in naval rank. But he also received the com- 
mand of a new expedition to sail in the following year 
and to attempt for the unknown north polar regions what 
he had already done in the far south. To a man of his 
nature, this was perhaps the greatest possible reward, 
but the new work was his last, and his death left it un- 
completed. 
For nearly a generation no other vessel ventured into 
the southern ice bent on exploration. But the merchants 
