On this mission he left England in 1768, anchored at {181} the Society
Islands of the South Seas in the spring of 1769, explored New Zealand
in the fall of the same year, rounded Australia in 1770 and returned to
England in 1771, the very year Hearne was trying to tramp it overland
in search of a Northwest Passage. And he brought back no proof of that
vast southern world which geographers had put on their maps. Promptly
he was sent out on a second voyage to find or demolish that mythical
continent of the southern hemisphere; and he demolished the myth of a
southern continent altogether, returning from circumnavigating the
globe just at the time when the furor of a Northwest Passage northward
of Hudson Bay, northward even of Bering's course on the Pacific, was at
its height.
The third voyage was to determine finally the bounds of western
America, the possibilities of a passage between Europe and Asia by way
of the Pacific. Two ships--the _Resolution_, four hundred and sixty
tons, one hundred and twelve men, which Cook had used before, and the
_Discovery_, three hundred tons, eighty men--were purchased at Hull,
the old port of Cook's boyhood dreams.
Pages:
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248