chart of the channel from Quebec
to the sea. In 1762 he was present at the recapture of Newfoundland, and
was employed in surveying portions of this coast (especially Placentia
Harbour); in 1763, on Palliser becoming governor of Newfoundland, Cook
was appointed "marine surveyor of the coast of Newfoundland and
Labrador"; this office he held till 1767; and the volumes of sailing
directions he now brought out (1766-1768) showed remarkable abilities.
At the same time he began to make his reputation as a mathematician and
astronomer by his observation of the solar eclipse of the 5th of August
1766, at one of the Burgeo Islands, near Cape Ray, and by his account of
the same in the _Philosophical Transactions_ (vol. lvii. pp. 215-216).

In 1768 Cook was appointed to conduct an expedition, suggested by the
revival of geographical interest now noticeable, and resolved on by the
English admiralty at the instance of the Royal Society, for observing
the impending transit of Venus, and prosecuting geographical researches
in the South Pacific Ocean. For these purposes he received a commission
as lieutenant (May 25th), and set sail in the "Endeavour," of 370 tons,
accompanied by several men of science, including Sir Joseph Banks
(August 25th). 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. His attempts to penetrate to the interior, however, were
thwarted by native hostility. From New Zealand he proceeded to "New
Holland" or Australia, and surveyed with the same minuteness and
accuracy the whole east coast. New South Wales he named after a supposed
resemblance to Glamorganshire; Botany Bay, sighted on the 28th of April
1770, was so called by the naturalists of the expedition. On account of
the hostility of the natives his discoveries here also were confined to
the coast, of which he took possession for Great Britain. From Australia
Cook sailed to Batavia, satisfying himself upon the way that (as Torres
had first shown in 1607) New Guinea was in no way an outlying part of
the greater land mass to the south.