NATURALISTS AND VOYAGERS MENTIONED

IN THE JOURNAL

ANSON, George, Lord (1697-1762), entered the navy in 1712, and was in 1740 sent to the Pacific in command of a squadron. Reaching his destination by way of South America, he captured the "Spanish galleon," and brought it to England, returning by the Cape of Good Hope in 1744. His "Voyage round the World" was published in 1748. In 1746 he was appointed to the command of the Channel Fleet, and was raised to the peerage in 1747. In 1751 he became First Lord of the Admiralty, having virtually performed all the duties of that office for two or three years previously.

BASTER, Job (1711-75), a Dutch naturalist, who published many works on natural history, including a treatise on the classification of plants and animals (1768), and " Opuscula subseciva" (1759-65), consisting of miscellaneous observations on animals and plants, referring more especially to seeds and embryos.

BIRON, C., author of "Curiosités de la Nature et de l'Art, apportées de deux Voyages des Indes, en Occident, 1698-99; en Orient, 1701-2; avec une Relation abrégée des deux Voyages" (1703).

BOUGAINVILLE, Louis Antoine de (1729-1811), was successively lawyer, soldier, secretary to the French Embassy in London, and officer under Montcalm in Canada. In 1765 he persuaded the inhabitants of St. Malo to fit out an expedition to colonise the Falkland Islands, but upon these being claimed by the Spaniards, Bougainville was sent out in 1766, in command of the frigate Boudeuse, with a consort, to transfer them to the latter country. After accomplishing this mission he proceeded through the Straits of Magellan and fell in with Otahite (to which he gave the name of Cythère, but which had been previously seen by Quiros and Wallis), the Navigators, and the New Hebrides (Quiros' Terra del Espiritu Santo). Endeavouring to steer due west at about the 15th degree of south latitude, he was, when still out of sight of land, brought up by reefs (outside the Great

Barrier Reef). Turning northwards he sailed, by the Louisiade Archipelago and New Guinea, to the Moluccas, returning to France in 1769 via Batavia and Mauritius.

Bougainville was accompanied on this voyage by a naturalist, Philibert Commerson, whose servant, Jean Bary, passed for a man until her sex was recognised by the Tahitians. Otourrou, a Tahitian whom Bougainville took with him to France, died of small-pox at Madagascar while being conveyed back to his native country. The genus Bougainvillea was so named by Commerson in honour of the navigator, who was the first Frenchman to circumnavigate the globe. Bougainville afterwards commanded various vessels in the American War.

BRISSON, Mathurin Jacques (1723-1806), French naturalist and physicist, author of "Le règne animal" (1756), and "Ornithologie" (1760), and various works on physics.

BROSSE OF BROSSES, Charles de (1709-77), first President of the Parliament of Burgundy, author of "Histoire des Navigations aux Terres Australes" (1756).

BROWNE, Patrick (1720?-1790), a physician who studied natural history, more particularly botany, and after a voyage to the West Indies published the "Civil and Natural History of Jamaica" (1756). He also compiled more or less local catalogues of birds, fishes, and plants.

BUFFON, Georges Louis Leclerc, Comte de (1707-88), French naturalist and writer. Upon being appointed Director of the King's Garden at Paris, in 1739, he conceived the idea of compiling a natural history of creation, and devoted the following fifty years of his life to carrying out this project, with the help of other naturalists. His "Histoire naturelle" (published at various periods from 1749 to 1788) treats of the theory of the earth, nature of animals, man, viviparous quadrupeds, birds, and minerals. The task was continued after his

death by Lacépède.

BYRON, Vice-Admiral John (1723-86), was the second son of the fourth Lord Byron, and grandfather of the poet. He accompanied Anson on his voyage to the Pacific as a midshipman on board the Wager, which was wrecked on the coast of Chile in 1741: some years later he published the details of his adventures (1768). In 1764 he was appointed to the Dolphin, with orders to explore the South Seas. He left England in company with the Tamar, and, passing through the Straits of Magellan, stood across the Pacific, but following a course already known, made no discoveries of any importance. With a great deal of scurvy on board he reached the Ladrones, and returned home in 1766. [Otahite was rediscovered on the Dolphin's second

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voyage by Wallis, q.v.] Byron was afterwards (1769-72) Governor of Newfoundland, and had command of the West Indian Fleet in 1778-79.

CANTON, John (1718-72), F.R.S., electrician, was the first Englishman who successfully repeated Franklin's experiments. He invented an electroscope and an electrometer. The Copley Medal of the Royal Society was awarded him in 1751.

COOK, Captain James (1728-79), the son of an agricultural labourer, was born at Marton in Yorkshire. He served several years in the merchant service, but volunteered for the navy in 1755, entering on the Eagle under Captain Hugh Palliser. It was owing to the influence of the latter that Cook, who had previously surveyed the St. Lawrence river, was afterwards appointed "Marine Surveyor to the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador." He published his results as directions for navigating these coasts (1766-68).

The Admiralty having at the instance of the Royal Society resolved to despatch an expedition to observe the transit of Venus in the Pacific, Cook was appointed Lieutenant and placed in command of the Endeavour (1768): this voyage is described in the following pages.

On his return in 1771, Cook was immediately promoted to the rank of Commander and sent again to the Pacific with the Resolution and Adventure, the primary object of the expedition being to verify the existence or non-existence of an antarctic continent. He left Plymouth in 1772, and proceeded to the Cape of Good Hope, whence sailing in a south-easterly direction, he was the first to cross the Antarctic circle. After revisiting New Zealand, Otahite, and New Zealand again (when the Resolution and Adventure parted company), he sailed to the south, and reached his highest latitude (71°10) in January 1774. After touching at Easter Island he explored the New Hebrides and discovered New Caledonia, whence he returned home by New Zealand, Cape Horn, and South Georgia, reaching Plymouth in July 1775.

Apart from the geographical discoveries, and finally setting at rest the question of a habitable southern continent, this voyage was, even more than the first, remarkable for the fact that Cook kept his crew absolutely free from scurvy, and lost only a single man during the whole of the three years. Cook's demonstration of the possibility of maintaining the health of crews during long periods is one of his greatest titles to fame. He gave an account of his methods for the prevention of scurvy to the Royal Society in 1776, and the Copley Medal was in the same year awarded to him, in recognition of his services to the maritime world and to humanity in this connection.

Having been promoted to the rank of Captain, he offered to take command of an expedition to the North Pacific in search of a Northwest Passage. He left England on this, his third voyage, in July

1776, in the Resolution, his consort, the Discovery, joining him at the Cape of Good Hope. The two ships visited Van Diemen's Land and New Zealand, and spent 1777 among the islands of the South Pacific. Going north, he discovered the Sandwich Islands (1778), and surveyed the west coast of North America as far as Icy Cape (thus passing through the Behring Straits). Thence, finding further advance impossible, he returned to the Sandwich Islands, anchoring in Karakakoa Bay. The natives at first proved friendly, but quarrels afterwards arose, and Cook, going on shore to recover a stolen boat, was killed (14th February 1779), no attempt at a rescue being made.

COWLEY, Captain, buccaneer, fell in with "Pepys" Island, which was afterwards recognised to be one of the Falklands, about the year 1683. He sailed round the world in 1683-86, keeping a Journal from which the account of his voyage in Callander's "Terra Australis Cognita" is taken.

In

DALRYMPLE, Alexander (1737-1808), went out as a writer in the East India Company's service in 1752, and undertook several voyages for the Company, particularly to the Sulu Islands and to China. 1767 he published an Account of Discoveries in the South Pacific Ocean before 1764," and later a 'Historical Collection of South Sea Voyages" (1770-71), besides pamphlets on Indian affairs. He was appointed the first Hydrographer to the Admiralty in 1795, but was dismissed in 1808, and died the same year.

DAMPIER, William (1652-1715), buccaneer, captain in the navy, and hydrographer, made several voyages to the South Seas. In one of these he left Virginia in 1683 and went by way of South America to the East Indies, where he spent some time in trading. He returned to England in 1691 and published his "Voyage Round the World" (1697). On a later voyage he sailed under directions from the Admiralty along the northern coast of New Holland and visited New Guinea (1699-1701). His narrative of this expedition, entitled "Voyage to New Holland in the year 1699" (published 1703-9), is remarkable for the information it contains on the natural history, etc., of Australia. He was again in the South Seas in 1703-7 and in 1708, upon which last occasion he rescued Alexander Selkirk, whom he had himself left there on the former voyage, from the island of Juan Fernandez.

"DOLPHIN," the first vessel in the English navy sheathed with copper: 1st voyage, see Byron; 2nd voyage (to Otahite), see Wallis.

EDWARDS, George, F.R.S. (1694-1773), naturalist, Librarian to the Royal College of Physicians. He was the author of a "History of Birds" (1743-64), one volume of which is remarkable for being dedicated to God.

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xlvii

FERNANDEZ, Juan (died 1576), Spanish navigator, appears to have been constantly employed as pilot off the coasts of South America. He discovered the islands bearing his name about 1572, and in 1576 reported another large island or continent, which has not been identified.

FOTHERGILL, John, M.D., F.R.S. (1712-80), was a Quaker, and the first graduate of Edinburgh to be admitted as a licentiate of the College of Physicians (1744). He was greatly interested in botany, and possessed a magnificent botanical garden at Upton, near Stratford, where he kept many draughtsmen. He also made large collections of shells and insects. His "Hortus Uptonensis" was published amongst his "Works" after his death in 1783-84.

FRÉZIER, Amédée François (1682-1773), engineer and traveller, born at Chambéry, was descended from the Scotch Frasers. He was sent out by the French king in 1711 to examine the Spanish colonies in South America, and on his return in 1714 published his "Relation d'un Voyage de la Mer du Sud aux côtes du Chili et du Pérou (1716). He was afterwards Director of Fortifications of Brittany, and was the author of several works on architecture.

HASSELQUIST, Fredrik (1722-52), Swedish naturalist and pupil of Linnæus. He spent three years (1749-52) travelling in Palestine and Egypt, and made large collections of fishes, reptiles, insects, plants, and minerals, studying also Arab manuscripts, coins, and mummies. He died at Smyrna, and his collections passed into the hands of Linnæus, who published Hasselquist's journal and observations under the title of "Iter Palestinum" (1757).

HISTOIRE des Navigations aux Terres Australes, see Brosse.

HULME, Nathaniel, F.R.S. (1732-1807), was Physician to the Charter-house.

LE MAIRE, Jacob (died 1616), Dutch navigator, left Holland in company with William Cornelissen Schouten (died 1625) in 1615, in the Concorde, with the view of determining the position of the southern point of South America, in defiance of the regulations of the Dutch East India Company, which attempted to close the routes to India, either by the Cape of Good Hope or the Straits of Magellan. Le Maire and Schouten discovered Staten Island and Cape Horn, which they doubled, and thence proceeded to Batavia, passing along the north-east coast of New Guinea. On their arrival at Batavia, their ship was seized and they were sent to Holland, but Le Maire died before reaching Europe. Schouten published an account of the voyage in 1618.