me weeks, Cook's work was well received
by the public, and Mrs. Cook, to whom the whole of the profits were
given, reaped considerable benefit from its sale.

FELLOW OF ROYAL SOCIETY.

On 29th February 1776, Captain James Cook was unanimously elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society, and his certificate of election was signed
by no less than twenty-six of the Fellows. He was formally admitted on
17th March, on which date a paper written by him, on the means he had
used for the prevention and cure of scurvy, was read. That he valued his
success in dealing with this disease, which, at that time, even in
voyages of very moderate length was the most terrible danger to be
encountered, is plainly set forth in his Journal of the voyage. He says:

"But whatever may be the public judgment about other matters, it is with
real satisfaction and without claiming any merit but that of attention to
my duty, that I can conclude this account with an observation which facts
enable me to make, that our having discovered the possibility of
preserving health amongst a numerous ship's company, for such a length of
time in such varieties of climate and amidst such continued hardships and
fatigues, will make this voyage remarkable in opinion of every benevolent
person, when the disputes about a Southern Continent shall have ceased to
engage the attention and to divide the judgment of philosophers."

During his early days at sea it was no unusual thing for a man-of-war to
be short-handed through scurvy after a cruise of a few weeks, and in a
voyage across the Atlantic as many as twenty per cent of the crew are
known to have perished. To give some of his own experiences in the Navy:
On 4th June 1756, H.M.S. Eagle arrived in Plymouth Sound, after cruising
for two months in the Channel and off the French coast, and Captain
Pallisser reported landing 130 sick, buried at sea 22, and since his
arrival in port his surgeon and 4 men had died, and both his surgeon's
mates were very ill; this out of a complement of 400!

Boscawen, sailing from Halifax for Louisberg in 1758, left several ships
behind on account of scurvy, one being the Pembroke, of which Cook was
Master; she had lost 29 men crossing the Atlantic, but she was able to
rejoin before the others as they were in a worse plight. Wolfe reported
to Lord George Sackville that some of the regiments employed at Louisburg
had "300 or 400 men eat up with scurvy." Of the Northumberland when at
Halifax,