Charles Raymond Beazley

“ On the 13th of April 1769, he reached Tahiti, where he observed the transit on the 3rd of June. From Tahiti he sailed in quest of the great continent then supposed to exist in the South Pacific, explored the Society Islands, and thence struck to New Zealand, whose coasts he circumnavigated and examined with great care for six months, charting them for the first time with fair accuracy, and especially observing the channel (“Cook Strait”) which divided the North and South Islands. ”

“ The voyage closed with a rapid survey of the “Land of Fire,” the rounding of Cape Horn, the rediscovery of the island now named Southern Georgia, the discovery of Sandwich Land, the crossing of the South Atlantic (here also exploding the great Terra Australis delusion) , and visits to the Cape of Good Hope, St Helena, Ascension, Fernando Noronha and the Azores. ”

“ The voyage (reckoning only from the Cape of Good Hope and back to the same) had covered considerably more than 20,000 leagues, nearly three times the equatorial circumference of the earth; it left the main outlines of the southern portions of the globe substantially as they are known to-day; and it showed a possibility of keeping a number of men for years at sea without a heavy toll of lives. Cook only lost one man out of 118 in more than 1000 days ”