very same day, deeming it, as he expresses it, a dangerous and rash enterprize to struggle with fields of ice.  “I,” he continues, “who had ambition not only to go farther than any one before, but as far as it was possible for man to go, was not sorry to meet with this interruption.”  The existence of a southern continent was thus considered by Captain Cook, and all other geographers, as disproved to an almost absolute certainty.

In this voyage Captain Cook also obtained a correct knowledge of the land discovered by La Roche in 1675, and gave to it the name of New Georgia; he discovered, too, Sandwich land, which was then supposed to be the nearest land to the South Pole; he ascertained the extent of the Archipelago, of the New Hebrides, which had been originally seen by Quiros, and superficially examined by Bougainville.  New Caledonia, and many of the islands among the groupe to which he gave the name of the Friendly Islands, were also among the fruits of this voyage.

The French government had sent out an expedition, about the same time that Captain Cook sailed in quest of a southern continent, on a similar pursuit.  A French navigator some time before had stated that he had discovered land, having been driven far to the south, off the Cape of Good Hope.  This supposed land the expedition alluded to was also to look after.  The person selected to conduct it, M. De Kerguelen, does not seem to have been well chosen or qualified for such an enterprize; for after having discovered land, situated in 49 deg. south latitude, and 69 deg. east longitude from Greenwich, he returned rather precipitately to France, without having explored this land, concluding very rashly, and without any sufficient grounds, that the Terra Australis was at length ascertained to exist, and its exact situation determined.  He was received and treated in France as a second Columbus:  but as the French court seems to have had some doubts on the extent and merit of his alleged discoveries, notwithstanding the reception which it gave him, he was sent out a second time, with two ships of war of 64 and 32 guns each, and 700 men, to complete his discovery and take possession of this new continent.  But he soon ascertained, what indeed he might and ought to have ascertained in his first voyage, that what he deemed and represented to be the Terra Australis was only a dreary and inhospitable island, of small size, so very barren and useless, that it produces no tree or even shrub of any kind, and very little grass.  On such an island, in such a part of the globe, no inhabitants could be looked for; but it is even almost entirely destitute of animals; and the surrounding sea is represented as not more productive than the land.  The French navigator was unable to find safe anchorage in this island, though it abounded in harbours; to this miserable spot he gave his own name.  It was afterwards visited by Captain Cook, in his third voyage, and also by Peyrouse.