mast; not a very serious loss, for they had a spare stick,
and the broken one "had often complained," but Burney says that owing to
the weather it took them three days to complete the repairs. The cold,
rough weather also had a bad effect on the live stock, several of them
perishing.

DENSE FOG.

On 12th December the islands discovered by Marion du Fresne and Crozet in
1772 were sighted, and as they were unnamed in the map, dated 1775, given
by Crozet to Cook, he called them Prince Edward's Islands, and a small
group further to the east was named Marion and Crozet Islands. Then
sailing south through fog so dense that, Burney says, they were often for
hours together unable to see twice the length of the ship, and, though it
was the height of summer, the cold was so intense that the warm clothing
had to be resorted to, they sighted Kerguelen's Land on 24th December.
The Chevalier de Borda had given Cook 48 degrees 26 minutes South, 64
degrees 57 minutes East of Paris as the position of Rendezvous Island;
this Cook took to be an isolated rock they only just weathered in the
fog, to which he gave the name of Bligh's Cap, for he said: "I know
nothing that can Rendezvous at it but fowls of the air, for it is
certainly inaccessible to every other animal." Cook, unaware that
Kerguelen had paid two visits to the place, found some difficulty in
recognising the places described. The country was very desolate, the
coarse grass hardly worth cutting for the animals; no wood, but a good
supply of water was obtained; and here the Christmas Day was spent on the
27th, as the 25th and 26th had been full of hard work. A bottle was found
by one of the crew containing a parchment record of the visit of the
French in 1772; on the back Cook noted the names of his ships and the
year of their visit, and adding a silver twopenny piece of 1772, replaced
it in the bottle which was sealed with lead and hidden in a pile of
stones in such a position that it could not escape the notice of any one
visiting the spot. Running along the coast to the south-east they
encountered very blowy weather, and finding the land even more desolate
than that at Christmas Harbour, they left on the 31st for New Zealand.
Anderson, the surgeon, on whom Cook relied for his notes on Natural
History, says:

"Perhaps no place hitherto discovered in either hemisphere under the same
parallel of latitude affords so scanty a field for the naturalist as this
barren spot."

The