Answers to Go with Susan Smith
Q. I really enjoyed “Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going where Captain Cook Has Gone Before.” I found it on your Staff Picks book display. I knew about his voyages in the South Pacific, but I’d like to know more about his other voyages. Where should I look?
A. We have an impressive new Credo biography database in our TexShare research subscription package. The library pays the access fees so it is free for our customers.
Credo makes it possible to search a database of 3.5 million biographical essays pulled from 1,227 reference books. This database provides information on all sorts of people; Captain James Cook is a prominent explorer so he is well-covered.
The following information is based on an article in Credo originally found in “Antarctica and the Arctic Circle: A Geographic Encyclopedia of the Earth’s Polar Regions.”
Navigator and explorer, James Cook (1728–1779), was raised as one of eight children in a family of farm laborers in Yorkshire. At the age of 19, he became an apprentice to a North Sea coal shipper. Based on this experience, he joined the Royal Navy at 27.
In the next 10 years, he surveyed the channel of the St. Lawrence River and the coasts of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. In 1764, he took command of his first ship, the HMS Grenville. His work on Newfoundland naval charts and research on astronomy brought favorable attention from the Admiralty and the scientific Royal Society.
Cook was selected to chart the South Pacific and search for the southern continent. Scientists of the day thought there must be a land mass of corresponding size in the southern hemisphere to balance the continents of the northern hemisphere.
In 1768, Cook set sail on HMS Endeavour with botanists Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander. He sailed around Cape Horn to Tahiti, circumnavigated New Zealand, and was the first European to explore the eastern coast of Australia. After three years, Cook returned to England with extensive reports which included charts, scientific specimens, journals and paintings.
Cook wanted to continue his search for the southern continent. In 1772, he was sent out again with two ships, the HMS Resolution and the HMS Adventure. They rounded Cape Hope and headed south toward Antarctica.
In spite of frequent sightings of icebergs, Cook sailed on and his ships were the first to cross the Antarctic Circle (Jan. 17, 1773.) Later he lost, and never regained, contact with the Adventure in a storm. Cook and his crew crossed the Antarctic Circle twice more. He came within 1,250 miles of the South Pole.
In this three-year voyage, Cook circumnavigated Antarctica and traveled 60,000 miles. He sought, but did not find the southern continent. This expedition ended the search for that mythical land.
On his final voyage of exploration (1776), Cook explored the Pacific coast of North America in hopes of finding the long-sought Northwest Passage. Once again he sailed the Resolution (accompanied by HMS Discovery) around Cape Town and onward to the South Pacific.
Cook made his last great discovery in January 1778, when he and his sailors were the first Europeans to reach the Hawaiian Islands. He named them the Sandwich Islands after the Earl of Sandwich who was also the First Lord of the Admiralty.
From Hawaii, he turned toward the Pacific coasts of North America. He sailed through the Bering Strait and crossed the Arctic Circle, but he did not find the hoped for Northwest Passage.
Cook returned to Hawaii for the winter. He was killed in a dispute with the Hawaiians over a stolen boat. His crew buried him at sea in Kealakekua Bay. They returned to England, arriving in October 1779.
Additional source from our bookshelves: “Antarctica and the Arctic: The Complete Encyclopedia” by Mc-Gonigal and Woodworth.
