shortened the dangers and hardships inseparable from the navigation of the southern polar regions. Since therefore we could not proceed further to the south, no other reason need be assigned for my tacking and standing back to the north, being at this time in the latitude of 71° 10′ south, longitude 106° 54' west;" which was the nearest approximation to the pole during the whole voyage. After having thus fully explored those appaling regions he bade an eternal farewell to the southern frigid zone, crossing the Antarctic at 101° west longitude. On Christmas day 1773, the Midsummer in those parts, they were in about 58° south, and Captain Cook made this remark in his journal. 66 Although this was the middle of summer with us, I much question if the day was colder in any part of England. During their whole summer continuance in those latitudes, they had no thaw, for the mercury in Fahrenheit's thermometer kept generally below the freezing point. Whilst in the frigid zone, they had scarcely any night, so that within a few minutes of midnight, the light of the sun was sufficient to write or read by. The sun's stay below the horizon was so short that a clear twilight continued all the time of his disappear. ing. In the first attempt to penetrate southward, Captain Cook was one hundred and seventeen days without a sight of land, and in his second, he was one hundred and four in the same situation, Beating for joyless months the gloomy wave; and doomed all that time to explore Thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice, And blown with restless violence round about It might have been supposed, that the hardships and daugers which had been endured, together with the important geographical knowledge which had been acquired, would have induced this great navigator, now that he had quitted the South Sea, to rest from his labours, and to seek his native country by the most direct rout. But, like Cæsar, thinking nothing done whilst any thing remained undone, he was still intent on farther researches, and resolved to traverse the Atlantic Ocean, between the 50th and 60th degrees of latitude, from the meridian of Cape Horn to that of the Cape of Good Hope, in which he spent upward of three months. That the officers and men quietly acquiesced in this farther extension of their toils and perils, deprived of the two essentials to the enjoyment of life, nourishing food and human inter. course; that amidst the chaotic scenes which yet detained them, a general spirit of discontent, and a strong propensity to mutiny, did not prevail, prove their great leader to have possessed that elevation of mind and insinuating manner, which effectually con. trouled the most boisterous spirits, and make the heaviest and the longest sufferings supportable, merely by having such a man to partake in them, and cheerfully to undergo them. In the cruise of 1775, a large island was discovered which our navigator named Southern Georgia. It lies between 53° 57′ and 54° 57′ south latitude, 38° 13′ and 35° 34′ west longitude, and is described as a country the most savage and horrible; not a tree nor even a shrub was to be seen; the while rocks raised their lofty summits till they were lost in the clouds, and valleys lay covered with snow. Seals and sea bears were numerous, and a sea lion was shot. The seals and penguins killed here were very acceptable food to the whole crew; for any kind of fresh meat was eagerly coveted. "For my own part," says Captain Cook, "I was now, for the first time, heartily tired of salt meat of every kind; and though the flesh of the penguins could scarcely vie with bullock's liver, it being fresh was sufficient to make it go down." Even the climate of Tiera del Fuego, though lying more to the southward, is mild, with respect to that of Georgia; the difference in the thermometer being observed to be at least 10 degrees, Beside being uninhabitable, South Georgia does not appear to contain a single article for which it might be visited occasionally by European ships. Not a river or stream of fresh water was seen on the whole coast. Captain Cook left the southern part of this island on the 26th of January, and steered east-south-east until he arrived in 60° lat. further than which he did not intend to go, unless he observed some certain signs of meeting with land. These high southern latitudes, where nothing was to be found but ice and thick fogs, had at length tired even this persevering chieftain himself. Many on board were at this time afflicted with severe rheumatic pains and colds, and some were suddenly taken with fainting fits, since their unwholesome juiceless food could not supply the waste of animal spirits. As the ship was now proceeding northward, the hope of soon reaching a milder climate diffused a general satisfaction; but another frozen country rose to their view, and threatened to retard the accomplishment of their wishes. The discovery of this land was made on the 31st of January, at seven in the morning. Captain Cook gave the name of Sandwich-Land to this discovery, which may possibly be the northern point of a continent; for he is of opinion that there is a track of land near the pole, which is the source of most of the ice that is spread over this vast Southern Ocean. He likewise thinks it extends farthest to the north oppo. site the southern Atlantic and Indian Oceans, because ice was always found more toward the north in those seas than any where else; which he imagines could not be, if there was not land of considerable extent to the south; but the risque that is run in exploring a coast in these unknown and icy seas is so very great, that he concludes, on the best grounds, that no man will ever venture farther than he has done; and that the lands which may lie to the south will never be explored. Thick fogs, snows, storms, intense cold, and every other thing that can render navigation dangerous, must be encountered, and these difficulties are greatly heightened by the inexpressibly horrid aspect of the country; a country doomed by nature never once to feel the warmth of the sun's rays, but to lie buried in everlasting snow and ice. The ports which may be on the coast are in a manner wholly filled up with frozen snow of vast thickness; and if any be so far open as to invite a ship in it, she would run a risque of being fixed there for ever, or of coming out in an ice-island. The islands and floats on the coast, the great falls from the ice-cliffs in the port, or a heavy snow-storm, attended with a sharp frost, would be equally fatal. The most southern extremity that was seen was called Southern Thule, and lies in latitude 59° 30′ south, longitude 27° 30′ west. The whole country had the most desolate and horrid appearance imaginable; not a single blade of grass could be discerned upon it, and it seemed to be forsaken even by the amphibious and lumpish animals which dwell on South Georgia. It remains very doubtful whether the different projecting points form one connected land, or several distinct islands; and this may probably continue undetermined for ages, since an expedition to those inhospitable parts of the world, beside being extremely pe rilous, does not seem likely to be productive of great advantages to mankind. Prudence would not permit the commander to ven. ture near a coast subject to thick fogs, where there was no anchorage, and every part was blocked and filled up with ice, and the whole country, from the summits of the mountains down to the very brink of the cliffs which terminate the coast, was covered two fathom thick with everlasting snow. Thron'd in his palace of cerulean ice, Here arms his winds with all-subduing frost : Moulds his fierce hail, and treasures up his snows. "It would have been rashness in me," says Captain Cook, to have risked all that had been done during the voyage in discovering and exploring a coast, which, when discovered and explored, would have answered no end whatever, or have been of the least use to navigation or geography, or indeed to any other science." It had long been a prevailing opinion among the learned that a large continent existed in the Southern hemisphere, of which New Holland, a country which had been visited and named by Tasman, a Dutch navigator, was supposed to be a part. This imaginary continent was generally styled Terra Australis incog. nita, but such an idea is now entirely refuted, for the panegyrist of Captain Cook justly remarks, that "this voyage will immortalize the conductor of it; in it vast tracts of new coast were not only discovered but surveyed, the illusion of a Terra Australis incognita was dispelled, whilst the bounds of the habitable earth as well as those of the navigable ocean in the southern hemisphere were fixed." [Hawkesworth, Forster, Pringle, SECTION II. Ice Islands, and sufferings of Lieutenant Riou and his Crew, in the Guardian Frigate, by striking against an Island of this kind. AMONG the many interesting discoveries which this voyage revealed to the world, the vast islands of floating ice which abound in the southern latitudes may be considered as peculiarly worthy of notice. The first of these was met with on the 10th of Decem ber, 1773, in latitude 50° 40′ south. It was about fifty feet high, and half a mile in circuit, flat at top, while its sides rose in a perpendicular direction, against which the sea broke exceed. ingly high. In the afternoon of the same day, they sailed near another large cubical mass, which was about 2000 feet long, 400 feet broad, and at least as high again as the main top gallant-mast head, or 200 feet. According to the experiments of Boyle, and Mairan, the volume of ice is to that of sea-water nearly as 10 to 9; consequently, by the known rules of hydrostatics, the volume of ice which rises above the surface of the water, is to that which sinks below it as 1 to 9. Supposing therefore this piece to be entirely of a regular figure, its depth under water must have been 1800 feet, and its whole height 2000 feet: allowing its length as above mentioned 2000 feet, and its breadth 400 feet, the whole mass must have contained 1600 millions cubic feet of ice. Such is the account given by Mr. Foster. Mr. Wales, astronomer on board the Resolu. tion, who published "Remarks on Mr. Forster's account of this voyage," doubts the principles on which the calculation is founded, as the experiments above referred to were made with real, solid and compact ice, whereas the ice which composed this mass was light and porous, being chiefly snow and salt water-frozen to. gether, and bears not perhaps a greater proportion to the weight of salt-water than that of 5 to 6, or 6 to 7 at the utmost." On the 12th, six more islands were seen, some of them nearly two miles in circuit, and 60 feet high; and yet such was the force and height of the waves, that the sea broke quite over them. This exhibited for a few moments a view very pleasing to the eye, but a sense of danger soon filled the mind with horror; for had the ship got |