THE LIGHTHOUSE AND CAPTAIN COOK'S MONUMENT AT POINT VENUS, TAHITI This promontory takes its name from the observations of the transit of Venus made here by Captain Cook while the thermometer registered 119 degrees Fahrenheit in the sun. This astronomical project was the major reason for the explorer's first voyage, when he named the Society Islands, which include Tahiti, for the Royal Society, the scientific organization sponsoring his expedition (see text, page 89). loud-swearing and heavy-drinking 41 sailors and 12 marines. "Nothing is more clear," says one historian, "than the profound ignorance and the brutality of the common sailor of the eighteenth century." He had bulldog courage (which freed the commanders from worry on this score in the face of danger), but how would he stand the long weeks aboard ship? Would he desert, would he drink himself into a stupor, would he defy the rules laid down for treatment of natives? After all, the purpose of this privation and suffering was a closed book to him. Cook's men did all these things, but, wonder of wonders, which is the highest tribute to their commander's leadership, they did not mutiny, either on this or on subsequent voyages! The Endeavour sailed from Plymouth Sound late in August, 1768, and in Projections such as this, and hidden rocks, in addition to the winds which prompted Cook to give the cape its name, were obstacles he encountered in charting the New Zealand coast. While off Cape Foulwind Cook wrote in his journal: "No country upon earth can appear with a more rugged and barren aspect than this does from the sea, for as far inland as the eye can reach nothing is to be seen but the summits of these rocky mountains, which seem to lay so near one another as not to admit any vallies between them." WHERE COOK PROVED THAT TWO ISLANDS COMPRISE NEW ZEALAND Courtesy Auckland Weekly News In this, Cook Strait, and in 15 other important places the explorer's name is perpetuated on our world map; he gave the names they still bear to hundreds of physical features, from Vancouver to Australia and from Alaska to the island of Georgia, in the South Atlantic. Many of the names he bestowed are descriptive either of features he noted or adventures he experienced, such as Cape Tribulation, Lizard Island, Botany Bay, and Providential Channel. The top of the center ridge in the foreground now is a whaler's lookout. WHERE THE SEA "BOILS" WITH FISH Acres of sea salmon and trevally off New Zealand's shores afford a rich harvest for birds, which not only feed on the fish, but afford fishermen a conspicuous guide to the shoals of sea food. This salmon is of a mottled silver-green color and averages from eight to ten pounds; the trevally is one of the forty-two most valuable and plentiful of the ninety varieties of edible fishes caught in New Zealand waters. This remarkable photograph was taken off the northeast coast of the Auckland provincial district, near the Bay of Islands (see, also, text, page 103). Photograph by Herbert H. Fishwick A LANDSCAPE OF THE ISLAND-CONTINENT THAT COOK ADDED TO BRITAIN'S REALM The northern part of New South Wales, Australia, near the Queensland border, is watered and drained by the River Tweed, seen at the left of the picture. The towering peak in the background is Mount Warning, so named by Captain Cook. Its summit commands a view which is considered one of the finest and is among the most extensive in the Commonwealth. The rich flats and slopes are now given over to the growing of sugar cane, to dairying and mixed farming. |