ver, about 1050 m. direct N.N.W. of Brisbane. It is
visited by the ocean steamers of several lines, and is the centre of a
very extensive _beche-de-mer_ and pearl fishery. Tin and gold are worked
in the district, in which also good coffee and rice are grown. Cooktown
is the port of the Palmer gold-fields, and a railway runs to Laura on
the gold-fields, 67 m. W. by S. of Cooktown. It is the chief port of
Queensland for the New Guinea trade; and is also the seat of a Roman
Catholic vicariate apostolic whose bishop has jurisdiction over the
whole of Queensland north of lat. 18 deg. 50'. In 1770 Captain Cook here
beached his ship the "Endeavour," to repair the damage caused by her
striking a reef in the neighbourhood of the estuary, which he could only
clear by throwing his guns overboard. Cooktown became a municipality in
1876. The population of the town and district in 1901 was 1936.

COOKWORTHY, WILLIAM (1705-1780), English potter, famous for his
discovery of the existence of china-clay and china-stone in Cornwall,
and as the first manufacturer of a porcelain similar in nature to the
Chinese, from English materials, was born at Kingsbridge, Devon, of
Quaker parents who were in humble circumstances. At the age of fourteen
he was apprenticed to a London apothecary named Bevans, and he
afterwards returned to the neighbourhood of his birthplace, and carried
on business at Plymouth with the co-operation of his master, under the
title of Bevans & Cookworthy. The manufacture of porcelain was at the
time attracting great attention in England, and while the factories at
Bow, Chelsea, Worcester and Derby were introducing the artificial glassy
porcelain, Cookworthy, following the accounts of Pere d'Entrecolles,
spent many years in searching for English materials similar to those
used by the Chinese. From 1745 onwards he seems to have travelled over
the greater portion of Cornwall and Devon in search of these minerals,
and he finally located them in the parish of St Stephen's near to St
Austell. With a certain amount of financial assistance from Mr Thomas
Pitt of Boconnoc (afterwards Lord Camelford) he established the Plymouth
China Factory at least as early as 1768. The factory was removed to
Bristol about 1770, and the business was afterwards sold to Richard
Champion and others and became the well-known Bristol Porcelain
Manufactory. Apart from its historic interest there is little to be said
for the Plymouth porcelain. Techn