James C Hamilton - Captain James Cook and the Search for Antarctica

Captain James Cook and the Search for Antarctica

Dedicated to

My wife,

Paula Mary Stadtler Hamilton,

in memory of my mother,

Celia Currier Cook Hamilton,

and of my grandmother

Helen Noyes Currier Cook

James C. Hamilton

First published in Great Britain in 2020 by

PEN & SWORD HISTORY

An imprint of Pen & Sword Books Ltd

Yorkshire Philadelphia

Copyright James C. Hamilton, 2020

ISBN 978-1-52675-357-1

eISBN 978-1-52675-358-8

Mobi ISBN 978-1-52675-359-5

The right of James C. Hamilton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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Cook portrait by Nathaniel Dance-Holland ( c. 1775).

Cook statue (near Admiralty Arch, the Mall, London).

Captain Cook Memorial Museum (John Walker House), Whitby.

Cooks Cottage, Melbourne.

South Georgia Island.

Kerguelen Island.

Ice Islands on 9 January 1773 by William Hodges.

Cape Horn.

King penguin colony (South Georgias Salisbury Plain).

Endeavour and Cooks signature.

Circumnavigation of Antarctica Map and Resolution.

Resolution at South Georgia.

Gathering ice for water in Antarctica. Detail from Ice Islands on 9 January 1773 by Wm Hodges.

Resolution and Discovery at Queen Charlotte Sound, New Zealand.

John Harrisons chronometer No. 4.

200th anniversary of Cook at Christmas Harbour.

George Forster and tussock grass.

The Arch of Kerguelen and Cook inscription.

J.R. Forster and king penguin.

Possession Bay, South Georgia.

Joseph Banks and dove.

Macaroni penguin (South Georgia).

South Georgia fur seal.

Elephant seal harem (Kerguelen Island).

Kerguelen cabbage.

Scurvy grass.

Cushion plant.

Bluegrass or Cooks tussock grass.

Wandering albatross.

South Georgia pipit.

Cape pigeon (pintado petrel).

Antarctic tern.

James Cooks three voyages, 17681779/1780

James Cooks first voyage, 17681771

James Cooks second voyage, 17721775

James Cooks third voyage, 17761779/1780

Map of Antarctica, the Antarctic Convergence and Cooks crossings of the Circle in 1773 and 1774

Comparisons of the ships on Cooks three voyages

Partial list of officers on Cooks three voyages

The Ships Company in Resolution , second voyage

Cooks approximate route through the Strait of Le Maire and around Cape Horn, 1769

Comparison of longitude by observation, dead reckoning and the Kendall and Arnold chronometers

The ships and their distances apart, 811 February 1773

New Zealand, identifying locations pertaining to the separation of Resolution and Adventure off the Cook Strait, OctoberDecember 1773

Resolution s courses and distances, 2431 October 1773

Resolution s course after the separation, 30 October4 November

Approximate routes of Resolution and Adventure , 2527 December, 1773

Noon positions of Resolution and Adventure , 2931 October and 2527 November 1773

Resolution at the Antarctic Circle, 2127 December 1773 William Waless log book

Resolution s position, noon, 22 December 1773 Cooks journal and six log books

Temperature ranges, 11 January4 February 1774, third crossing of the Antarctic Circle

Map of the Scotia Sea

Kerguelen Island

Comparison of longitude by observation and the marine chronometer, 11 December 177220 March 1773

Resolution s Antarctic mileage totals, 17721774

Temperatures, sailing towards the Antarctic Circle, 17721773

Temperatures, sailing towards the Antarctic Circle, 17731774

Temperatures, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, 1775

Temperatures, Kerguelen Island, December 1776

Plants identified in Cooks journals at South Georgia Island (1775) and Kerguelen Island (1776)

Antarctica after Cook

In preparation of this book, the author acknowledges, with thanks, permission to cite material from the sources listed below, as well as suggestions and encouragement from colleagues and friends in my search for Captain James Cook:

The Hakluyt Society, London, for permission to cite material from J.C. Beaglehole, editor, The Journals of Captain James Cook , Parts I, II and III (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, for the Hakluyt Society, 1961, 1967, 1968).

The Syndics of Cambridge University Library, for permission to cite material from the Royal Greenwich Observatory, specifically the Board of Longitude log books by astronomers William Wales (RGO 14/58) and William Bayly (RGO 14/57).

The National Archives Image Library, Kew, Surrey, for permission to cite material from Admiralty log books, ADM55 series, for Tobias Furneaux ( Adventure ), Lieutenant Charles Clerke, Lieutenant Robert Cooper, Masters Mates Isaac Smith and John Duvall Barr, Master Joseph Gilbert (all in Resolution ), Master of Discovery Thomas Edgar, Lieutenant James King and Lieutenant John Gore ( Resolution ), the handwritten journals of Captain James Cook ( Endeavour and Resolution ), and log books from Erebus and Terror (1841).

The Hakluyt Society, London, for permission to cite material from Michael Hoare, editor, The Resolution Journals of Johann Reinhold Forster, 17721775 , four volumes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, for the Hakluyt Society, 1982).

The Navy Records Society, London, for permission to cite Admiralty Instructions to Captain Cook for his Three Voyages , edited by W.G. Perrin (1929).

The University of Hawaii Press, for permission to cite material from J.R. Forster, Observations Made on a Voyage Round the World , edited by Nicholas Thomas, Harriet Guest and Michael Dettelbach (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1996).

The University of Hawaii Press, for permission to cite material from George Forster, Journal of a Voyage Round the World , two volumes, edited by Nicholas Thomas and Oliver Berghof (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2000).

I thank Ian Boreham, editor, Cooks Log , the quarterly journal of the Captain Cook Society, for permission to use material from articles previously printed in Cooks Log and to cite information related to Cooks ships and officers who sailed with Cook ( www.captaincooksociety.com ). I also acknowledge, with appreciation, Ians review, suggestions and editing of my original articles over the past decade, which have been revised for this book.