James Cook
1728-1779
RESOLUTION and ADVENTURE, June 1772
RESOLUTION and DISCOVERY at Kerguelen Islands
James Cook was born on October 27, 1728 in the Yorkshire village of Marton. At age 18,
he signed on as a deckhand on a Whitby collier which carried coal to London. In his
spare time, he became an accomplished mathematician. He was actually offered his own
ship but refused, and joined the Royal Navy.
After two years in the Royal Navy, Cook became the master of his own ship, called the
Pembroke. He was ordered to chart the waters of the St. Lawrence River in Canada, and
was soon called to England and placed in command of the Endeavour, which was going
to take a number of scientists to the Pacific Ocean for observance of Venus.
The Endeavour departed in 1768. In 1769, after visiting Tahiti, he discovered New
Zealand and claimed it for Great Britain. A year later he sailed west, and spotted the east
coast of Australia. From the east coast of Australia he sailed north, and on August 22 he
claimed all of eastern Australia for Great Britain as well. The Endeavour returned to
England in 1771.
The British Admiralty wanted to find out what the unexplored part of the southern
hemisphere was – was it just water, or was it possible another continent? Cook was
instructed to travel south and if he found a continent he was to “take possession of
convenient situations in the country in the name of the King of Great Britain”. In the
case that it wasn’t a continent, he was to sail as far south as he possibly could,
circumnavigate the area and sail north whenever weather made exploration impossible.
For this voyage, Cook received two ships, the Resolution, which was his flagship, and the
Adventure.
The two small ships set sail from Plymouth Sound on July 13, 1772 at 6:00 in the
morning. The ships arrived at Cape Town, South Africa 109 days later. On November 23,
1772, Cook sailed out of Cape Town, heading out into the unknown waters of the south.
On December 11, the Adventure and it’s crew believed they had found a continent, but
they had actually just sighted an iceberg.
On January 17, 1773 the ships are thought to have become the first to cross the Antarctic
Circle. Cook sailed around an endless pack of ice for two months, looking for an entrance
to travel further south, but finally sailed north when winter came. After sailing around
10,600 miles through uncharted waters, he reached Dusky Sound, on the South Island of
New Zealand.
Cook spent the winter exploring the islands of the South Pacific. A storm separated Cook,
on the Resolution, from the Adventure, but he sailed south on November 27, reaching the
ice pack once again.
The Resolution survived dangerous seas filled with huge icebergs without the loss of
anyone, and on January 30, they reached the furthest south that was possible. Once again,
Cook returned to New Zealand, and left there in November of 1774. He arrived at Tierra
del Fuego five weeks later, and then left once more to sail northeast into the Atlantic.
They sighted land immediately, thinking they had found the southern continent. Instead,
it was just an ice-laden island, which Cook named South Georgia. By the end of January,
he had sighted another group of islands even more desolate than South Georgia, which he
named the South Sandwich Islands.
Cook returned to England on July 30, 1775. He had proved that there was no southern
continent, unless it was at the pole itself.
In 1775 he was promoted again, and he accepted. Cook was now known as Fourth
Captain at Greenwich Hospital, but he was not ready for this. At 46 years of age, Captain
James Cook was ready to sail again.
In 1776, Cook found a replacement for the Adventure, which was not seaworthy. He
found another Yorkshire collier, named it the Discovery, and took control of the
Resolution once again, while the man who commanded the Resolution in Cook’s absence
took the Discovery.
This voyage was going to be different. They were to take the Northwest Passage, which
was a route to the Pacific from the Atlantic. All of the 50 previous attempts at the passage
had failed.
The Resolution left Plymouth on July 12, 1776 with the Discovery following a few weeks
later. The Resolution arrived in Cape Town on October 18, the Discovery arriving nearly
a month later. They left together on November 30th going southwest in order to find a
group of islands. They spotted the first of the islands on December 12th, which Cook
named the Prince Edward Islands.
Twelve days after they found land. They anchored on a beach and found a bottle with a
note in it, telling the crew of the French visits in 1772 and 1773. Cook wrote his visit on
the parchment. He spend four days exploring the island, was disappointed with the lack
of trees and grass. He called them the Islands of Desolation, which today are known as
the Îsles Kerguélen.
They left the island on December 30, 1776 for New Zealand. Cook was advised to wait
until the summer of 1778 to start the search for the Northwest Passage, and while in his
wait he made his greatest discovery. On January 18, 1778, Cook discovered the Hawaiian
Islands. The ships sailed north up the west coast of America, and couldn’t find the
Northwest passage, so they returned to the Hawaiian Islands.
In the middle of January, 1779, Cook anchored at Kealakekua Bay. He was greeted by
thousands of cheering natives. He returned to his ship on February 10th and they
discovered that a native had stolen one of their boats.
While investigating the theft of the boat, Cook was killed by the natives.
“Antarctic Explorer: James Cook” http://www.south-pole.com/p0000071.htm, August 18,
2009
British Navigator and Explorer, 1728 - 1779
James Cook was born on October 27, 1728 in Marton, (near modern Middlesborough), Yorkshire,
Britain. Cook commanded three voyages of discovery for Great Britain, and sailed around the world
twice. He was the first British ship commander to circumnavigate the globe in a lone ship. Cook was
also the first British commander to prevent the outbreak of scurvy by regulating his crew’s diet, serving
them citrus fruit and sauerkraut to prevent the disease. He is considered one of the world’s greatest
explorers.
Cook was an apprentice to a shipping company at age 15, and joined the British Navy in 1755 at the
age of 27. In 1768, the British Admiralty appointed Cook, then a Lieutenant, to lead a scientific
expedition that would sail to the island of Tahiti in the south Pacific to establish an astronomical
observatory. Their mission was to measure an eclipse of the sun by Venus. The Admiralty selected
Cook because of his proven skills as a navigator, and for his interest in astronomy. He set out on
August 12, 1768 in His Majesty’s Bark Endeavour, arriving in Tahiti on April 13, 1769. On June 3,
1769, Cook successfully measured the time it took Venus to transit the sun, and by doing so obtained
data that would help scientists to accurately determine the size of the solar system.
Cook was also issued secret orders to seek the great southern continent (“Terres Australes Incognita”
or unknown lands in the south) that geographers long believed kept the world in balance. In Cook’s
day, the discovery of new lands often lead to great wealth for the nation claiming those lands. His
orders were secret because the Admiralty did not want Britain’s international competitors to know
about this aspect of Cook’s expedition. Cook searched for Terres Australes to no avail, determining
that no such great continent existed.
In October 1769, he was the first European to land on New Zealand. The Islands were sighted
previously by Dutch Captain Able Tasman in 1642, 127 years before Cook’s landing. New Zealand is
named after the Dutch province of Zeelandt (meaning Sea Land).
In 1770, Cook conducted a comprehensive survey of the eastern coast of New Holland (now
Australia), the part of the continent the Dutch had not technically mapped. On August 22, 1770, he
claimed those lands for Great Britain. The name “Australia” was not used until the early 1800s.
On Cook’s second journey he sailed farther south than any other European. He circled Antarctica in
his famous ship Resolution, but the ice surrounding the continent prevented the sighting of land. The
existence of the Antarctica remained unproved until 1840. Upon his return to England in 1775, Cook
was promoted to Captain and elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society.
In July of 1776, Cook set sail on his third voyage, again in Resolution. His mission was to look for a
possible northern sea route between Europe and Asia. In 1778, Cook became the first know European
to reach the Hawaiian Islands. Later in 1778, he sailed up the northwest coast of North America, and
was the first European to land on Vancouver Island in British Columbia. He continued up the coast
through the Bering Strait, and entered the Arctic Ocean. Great walls of ice blocked the expedition, so
Cook headed back for the Hawaiian Islands.
On February 14, 1779, Cook was stabbed to death by Hawaiian natives while investigating a theft of a
boat by an islander. The expedition arrived back in England in October of 1780.
“Captain James Cook – ‘The Greatest Ocean’s Greatest Explorer’”
http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/95oct/jcook.html, August 18, 2009
James Cook: British Explorer
James Cook (October 27, 1728 - February 14, 1779) was a British explorer and
astronomer who went on many expeditions to the Pacific Ocean, the Antarctic,
the Arctic, and around the world.
Cook's first journey lasted from August 26,1768 to July 13, 1771, when he
sailed to Tahiti on the Endeavor in order to observe Venus as it passed between
the Earth and the Sun (this is called the transit of Venus, when Venus is visible
as a small black dot moving across the Sun; the time of transit was used to
calculate a more accurate distance between the Earth and the Sun). Cook was
also searching for a large, southern continent that was thought to exist (but does
not). Many scientists accompanied him on the voyage, including the botanist
Joseph Banks.
During this expedition, he sailed from Plymouth, England, to Brazil, around
Cape Horn (the southern tip of South America), and to Tahiti (April 11, 1769),
where he stayed for months in order to observe the transit of Venus (in order to
determine the distance from the Earth to the Sun). He then sailed to and named
the Society Islands (named to honor the Royal Society, the organization that
sponsored the trip).
Cook sailed to New Zealand on October 6,1769, where he and his crew fought
with the Maori (the earliest inhabitants of New Zealand) and mapped much of
the two major islands (the strait between these two islands is now named Cook
Strait) and showed that is was not part of a larger southern continent.
He then sailed to and mapped eastern and northern Australia (the Endeavor was
stuck for a day on the Great Barrier Reef off northeastern Australia; the ship
was damaged by coral and almost sank). They repaired the ship in northern
Queensland, Australia (the site of Cooktown and the mouth of the Endeavor
River), completing the repairs on August 6, 1770. Cook sailed through the strait
between Australia and New Guinea, and reached Batavia, Java, in October,
1770, where about 30 members of the crew died from malaria (a disease carried
by mosquitos). Cook replaced these crew members in South Africa.
On July 13, 1771, the Endeavor returned to England after a journey of almost
three years.
Cook's second expedition (1772-1775) took him to Antarctica and to Easter
Island on a voyage intended to show there was no large southern continent.
Cook's two ships on this voyage were the Resolution and the Adventure. Again,
many scientists accompanied him on the trip. A teen-aged George Vancouver
was a midshipman.
Cook left Plymouth, England, on July 13, 1772, and sailed to Cape Town,
South Africa, and on to Bouvet Island, near Antarctica. He was the first person
the cross the Antarctic circle. The two ships were separated in February, 1773,
and met again in New Zealand in April, 1773. They then explored area north
and east of New Zealand, including Tahiti and Tonga. The ships were again
separated; Cook sailed south, reaching a record latitude 71 degrees and 10
minutes (roughly 1250 miles from the South Pole); the other ship returned to
England (Captian Tobias Furneaux was the first to sail around the world from
east to west). Cook then sailed from Cape Horn (the southernmost point of
South America) to the Cape of Good Hope (the southernmost point of Africa)
and back to England, arriving on July 29, 1775.
Cook's last expedition (1776-1779) was a search for a Northwest Passage
across northern North America to Asia - he searched from the Pacific Ocean
side of the continent. Cook sailed from England on July 12, 1776, on the
Resolution. Officers on the ship included George Vancouver and William Bligh
(who would later be the captain of the Bounty and have his crew mutiny).
Cook arrived at Capetown, South Africa, on October 18, 1776, and sailed to the
Indian Ocean and on to New Zealand (in early 1777), the Cook Islands, and
Tonga. Heading for Alaska, Cook sailed to and named the Christmas Islands
(arriving on December 25, 1777, hence the name). He then sailed to and named
the Sandwich Islands (named for the Earl of Sandwich, one of Cook's patrons).
Cook searched for a Northwest Passage in Alaska, but was unsuccessful. He
then returned to the Sandwich Islands.
Cook was killed by a mob on Feb. 14, 1779, on the Sandwich Islands (now
called Hawaii). At the time, he was trying to take the local chief hostage to get
the natives to return a stolen sailboat. The ship returned to England without
Cook on October 4, 1780.
Cook was the first ship's captain to stop the disease scurvy (now known to be
caused by a lack of vitamin C) among sailors by providing them with fresh
fruits. Before this, scurvy had killed or incapacitated many sailors on long trips.
“James Cook: British Explorer – EnchantedLearning.com”
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/explorers/page/c/cook.shtml, August 18, 2009
Navigator and explorer of the Pacific and Antarctic, born in 1728 in Yorkshire, England. From an early age
Cook had an uncanny command of mathematics. Around the age of seventeen he applied for a job on a
collier (coal transport ship) and learned his trade on runs from Newcastle to London and into the Baltic and
North Seas. He joined the Royal Navy in 1755 at the age of 27. His extraordinary skills at navigation and
cartography soon gained him a promotion.
In 1768 Cook was appointed commander of the H.M.S. Endeavour to take members of the Royal Society on
an expedition to Tahiti, where they would record the transit of Venus across the sun and engage in general
exploration. The Endeavour was a refitted collier and proved well suited to exploration because of its large
capacity for cargo and shallow draft. Cook's second ship, the H.M.S. Resolution, was also a refitted collier.
Captain James Cook promoted the practice of feeding his crew sauerkraut and lime juice to fight scurvy,
based on the studies done by Dr. James Lind in 1747, and insisted his crew wash themselves and their
possessions, and exercise on the open deck regularly. It was not until 1795 that lime juice rations were
provided for all sailors in the Royal Navy, and to this day, British sailors are known as 'Limeys'. Vitamin C
would not be discovered and isolated until 1932 when W.A. Waugh and C.G. King at the University of
Pittsburgh, and Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, a Hungarian scientist, finally identified this important part of the human
diet. It is interesting to note, only primates and guinea pigs are unable to manufacture vitamin C on their
own, having lost the genetic information necessary to create this important dietary component.
“Captain James Cook (1728 – 1779)…”
http://www.plantexplorers.com/explorers/biographies/captain/captain-james-cook.htm,
August 20, 2009