of view.

Perhaps no science ever received greater additions from the labours of
a single man, than geography has done from those of Captain Cook. In
his first voyage to the South Seas, he discovered the Society Islands;
determined the insularity of New Zealand; discovered the straits which
separate the two islands, and are called after his name; and made a
complete survey of both. He afterward explored the eastern coast of
New Holland, hitherto unknown; an extent of twenty seven degrees of
latitude, or upward of two thousand miles.

In his second expedition, he resolved the great problem of a southern
continent, having traversed that hemisphere, between the latitudes
of 40 deg. and 70 deg., in such a manner as not to leave a possibility of its
existence, unless near the Pole, and out of the reach of navigation.
During this voyage be discovered New Caledonia, the largest island in
the Southern Pacific, except New Zealand; the island of Georgia; and
an unknown coast, which he named Sandwich Land, the _Thule_ of the
southern hemisphere; and having twice visited the tropical seas, he
settled the situations of the old, and made several new discoveries.

But the voyage we are now relating is distinguished, above all the
rest, by the extent and importance of its discoveries. Besides several
smaller islands in the Southern Pacific, he discovered, to the north
of the equinoctial line, the group called the Sandwich Islands; which,
from their situation and productions, bid fairer for becoming an
object of consequence, in the system of European navigation, than
any other discovery in the South Sea. He afterward explored what had
hitherto remained unknown of the western coast of America; from the
latitude of 43 deg. to 70 deg. N., containing an extent of three thousand five
hundred miles; ascertained the proximity of the two great continents
of Asia and America; passed the straits between them, and surveyed
the coast, on each side, to such a height of northern latitude, as to
demonstrate the impracticability of a passage in that hemisphere, from
the Atlantic into the Pacific Ocean, either by an eastern or a western
course. In short, if we except the sea of Amur, and the Japanese
Archipelago, which still remain imperfectly known to Europeans, he has
completed the hydrography of the habitable globe.

As a navigator, his services were not, perhaps, less splendid;
certainly not less important and meritorious. The method which he
d