r 
JAMES COOK 89 
restrains me from dealing that just censure which is due 
to many of my fellow-seamen, who by negligence, nar- 
row views of pecuniary interest, or timidity, have omitted 
many practicable investigations.’ , The evil was evidently 
acutely felt at the time when this was written, about 
1824. Long after the monopoly of information has lost 
its values the logs of old voyages may sometimes be re- 
covered in the archives of the business houses which had 
earned on the trade ; but too often they have been de- 
stroyed or lost sight of before the historian begins to 
inquire about them. This difficulty applies especially to 
the beginnings of things, and so we cannot now speak 
with certainty as to the first practical men who turned 
Cook’s second voyage to account. 
The last episode of the dwindling eighteenth century in 
the southern seas was the reputed discovery of the Aurora 
Islands, a group which for a time was the object of 
almost as much interest as Cape Circumcision itself, 
though they no longer figure on the chart. It was in 
1762 that the ship Aurora on her return from Lima, 
sighted two islands about 35 leagues to the east of the 
Falklands ; the larger was several miles in extent, and the 
ship passed between the two in latitude 53 0 15' S. Islands 
in a similar position were seen in 1769 from the San 
Miguel, and in 1774 the Aurora once more saw two 
islands, one in 53 0 38' S., about three leagues in length, 
separated from another at a distance of about three or 
four leagues to the E.S.E. The islands were seen again 
in 1779 and in 1790, and finally in 1794 the Spanish gov- 
ernment sent the corvette Atrevida to fix their position. 
This ship, provided with chronometers, left the Falklands 
on January 10th, 1794. After a slow voyage, much 
protracted by fog and bad weather, the Atrevida sighted 
