Why didn't Cook discover Antarctica? Captain Cook mistook Antarctica for floating ice Small chances for big things

James Cook

In 1769, the planet Venus was supposed to pass through the solar ocean. To monitor its passage into the Pacific Ocean, a expedition of English scientists led by Joseph Banks was equipped. The expedition set off on the ship Endeavor, commanded by James Cook 728-1799), the first person to prove that the Southern continent was not where they were looking for it.
During his life, replete with travel and adventure, Cook visited many islands of the Pacific Ocean and made many discoveries. But more than his discoveries, he was proud of the fact that during the many months he spent at sea, he did not lose a single person from Scurvy.
James Cook was a brave sailor, he had a strong will. His father was an agricultural worker, and the boy worked his way through hard work. Cook's path was difficult, but it eventually led him to the captain's bridge of a British warship. He managed to firmly take control of the ship, gaining the authority of the “gentleman” officers who looked askance at him because of his simple origin.
The Endeavor rounded Cape Horn and anchored off the island of Tahiti, where the expedition successfully observed the passage of Venus. It was unbearably hot, the thermometer showed 48° Celsius.
Having completed his observation, Cook set off on his famous voyage and, having visited the Partnership Islands, then headed to New Zealand and circled both of its islands, finally establishing that it was not part of the mainland. This was not an easy task, and another, less persistent person probably; I would not have completed this matter. Cook conscientiously mapped a coastline more than 3,800 kilometers long; he did not dare to penetrate into the interior of the island, since he had to witness cannibalism among the Maori natives.
Cook, who knew about the existence of New Holland (present-day Australia), sailed west. On April 19, 1770, he approached the mainland from the east and headed along the coast to the north. This coast is now part of the province of New South Wales. On April 28, Cook's ships anchored in Botany Bay, so named because of its rich vegetation.
The Endeavor sailed along the deserted coasts of Australia, often noticing haze on the shore, but only occasionally meeting natives. Apart from numerous kangaroos, researchers saw little of interest on the Australian shores. All was well until June 10, when Endeavor left the bay north of Cape Grafton. The sailor measuring the depth shouted: “Seventeen fathoms!”, and a minute later the ship stumbled upon a coral reef. Only the intense efforts of the crew, who began pumping out the water that poured into the hold, and the ingenuity of midshipman Monkhouse, who managed to plug the hole, saved the ship and allowed it to be brought into the mouth of some river, where it was put for repairs near the sloping shore. After repairs, the Endeavor safely reached the shores of New Guinea.
Cook did not have a single scurvy patient on the ship. During his previous voyages, he more than once had to witness how half, or even more than half of the crew died from this terrible disease. And he made it his task to fight scurvy in every possible way. Above all, he demanded cleanliness and always personally inspected the ship. All rooms were often fumigated, thoroughly washed and cleaned, and the cabins and holds were dried with hot coals after washing. The severity of his rounds led one of his biographers to write that “on Captain Cook’s ship every day was Sunday.”
But the most important anti-scorbutic remedy was a special, strictly obligatory diet. It included sour herbs, mustard, vinegar, wheat grains, condensed orange and lemon juice, sa-loup (a drink made from the roots of a meadow grass, or American laurel, widespread before the introduction of tea and coffee), "dry soup ", which looked like slabs of wood glue, sugar, molasses, and vegetables. In addition, wherever possible, the supply of celery was replenished and fresh malt wort was often brewed.
Everything went well until arriving in Batavia. But Batavia turned out to be a hotbed of tropical fever. While staying there, three people died from it.
From Batavia, the Endeavor headed to England, where it arrived in July o771.
In addition to its remarkable achievements in the fight against scurvy, Cook's first expedition made valuable contributions to geography. The main achievements of this expedition include proving that New Zealand is an island and not part of the southern continent, as well as mapping its contours and the eastern coast of Australia.
In 1772, England sent a second expedition of two ships: the Resolution was commanded by Cook, and the Adventure was commanded by Furneaux. Having rounded the Cape of Good Hope, the ships headed southeast and crossed the Antarctic Circle in January 1773.
The southern continent was nowhere to be seen, but there were much more ice fields and icebergs than Cook would have liked. New Zealand managed to collect large reserves of anti-scorbutic herbs. They were boiled and eaten twice a day. The herbs could not have come at a better time, since some of the team were already sick.
Turning again to the south and then to the east, Cook finally became convinced that the Great Southern Continent, which ancient geographers spoke of, did not exist.
Having come to this conviction, he left the polar waters, sailed to the Marquesas Islands and then to Tahiti. Having described an arc around the southern part of the ocean, the Resolution approached the Espiritu Santo Islands, which Cook renamed the New Hebrides. Then he moved southwest and discovered a large island, which he named New Caledonia.
We returned back past New Zealand and Cape Horn, stopping at the Cape of Good Hope. During this expedition, which lasted three years, Cook crossed the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans in the polar latitudes and again made several discoveries. The length of the route of the second expedition was 84,000 kilometers, that is, more than twice the length of the earth's equator.
Cook received the rank of captain 1st rank and was elected a member of the Korolev Geographical Society.
The very next year, Cook organized a third expedition to find the Northern Passage from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean.
This time he alone commanded two ships: Resolution and Discovery. The ships traveled along the route: Cape of Good Hope, Tasmania, New Zealand, Tonga and the Partnership Islands. Sailing north, Cook rediscovered the Hawaiian Islands, once found by the Spaniards and later discovered, which he renamed the Sandwich Islands. Next, Cook, in search of the Northwest Passage, walked along the western shores of America to its northwestern tip - Cape Barrow. On the way, he approached the shores of the Chukotka Peninsula. Cook could not find a passage to the Atlantic, and the ships returned back, first to the mouth of the Yukon, and then to the Hawaiian Islands.
Here the natives began to steal all sorts of small items from the ships. The size of the thefts kept increasing, and it got to the point that a boat was stolen from the Dis-Kaveri. Cook sent several detachments of sailors to search for the missing boat, and he himself came to explain to the local leader Torreoboo. The conflict was ready to be resolved peacefully when news arrived that the sailors had killed some local king. The natives grabbed their weapons, and Cook and his sailors had to retreat to the shore.
The natives, hiding behind mats, which perfectly protected them from the fire of English muskets, attacked with stones and darts. When the British finally reached the water, Cook, who was covering the retreat of his men, turned for a moment to face the sea to give orders to one of the boats. This moment turned out to be fatal for the captain: a stone hit him in the head, he fell into the water, and the natives dragged him away.
For several days, the ships knew nothing about the fate of the captain. Finally, a party of native warriors, led by a leader, drove up to the ships and gave the half-gnawed bones of their chief to the English. On February 21, at sunset, the Resolution, with flags at half-mast, saluted its fallen commander. To the sound of gunfire, Cook's remains were lowered into the depths of the ocean.
Captain Cook was the greatest explorer of his age and an excellent leader, and deserved much greater honor than he enjoyed in England during his lifetime.
Kind and strict, fair and energetic, James Cook was and will remain a model of nobility and courage.

The cold was so intense that it was almost impossible to bear, the whole sea was covered with ice, a strong storm dominated it, and everything was shrouded in thick fog. Under all these unfavorable circumstances, it was natural that I should think of returning to more northern regions." So he turned north into the warmer latitudes of the forties, and probably just in time, because George Forster, son of the eldest, or whining Forster, wrote that both the health and spirit of the crew had reached a nadir. His father and at least a dozen acquaintances were completely disabled and unable to work due to rheumatism - although his father apparently had no injuries to his hands, because the laments continued every day in the pages of his diary. Considering that the entire interior of the ship was saturated with moisture and dampness, it is surprising that there were so few sufferers of rheumatism. Forster Jr. continued that the whole crew felt weak and looked sick, and even Captain Cook himself was pale and thin, because he had completely lost his appetite.

For fourteen days Cook steered the ship north, but as soon as he was sure that his crew was in order again, to the incredible horror of Forster Sr., he turned the Resolution south again. When Cook began to perform any task, it was difficult to get him to turn aside; if the Southern Continent exists, he will find it. He did not tell his officers and sailors what their destination was for the simple reason that he did not know it himself. Forster wrote in despair: “There can be nothing so depressing as complete ignorance of where we are going, which, for no apparent reason, is constantly kept secret from all the people on the ship.”

For the third time, making his way between icebergs and ice fields, Cook sent his ship beyond the Antarctic Circle. Cook's unparalleled icy courage matched well with the polar deserts that surrounded him. Few captains of our day, with steel ships of powerful engines and great maneuverability, could repeat what Cook accomplished in his lumbering "coal miner" on that long-ago day in January 1774, at the mercy of every whim of wind or current, surrounded on all sides. sides with icebergs and hardly able to set the sails in the most advantageous manner, let alone raise or lower the sails, because they were frozen and were like steel sheets, because the ropes were no longer ropes, but iced cables. But that's exactly what Cook did - he didn't stop at the Antarctic Circle.

He continued moving south for four more days and then stopped on January 30, 1774, when he encountered a hard and impenetrable pack field stretching from horizon to horizon. The coordinates of this place were 71°10" south latitude and 106°34" west longitude. This was the southernmost point Cook reached. No one had ever been further south before him. It is worth noting, by the way, that from then until our time, more than two hundred years later, not a single ship penetrated further south in this area.

In his diary, the captain admits that he did not regret that he himself made the decision whether to go even further south. This phrase from his diary, probably the most quoted, gives us the most frank—indeed, the only frank—statement that Cook ever made about himself and about what drove him to an unprecedented series of exploits and discoveries: “I who hope, that ambition not only leads me further than any other person before me, but as far as I believe it is possible to go, I do not regret having encountered this obstacle.”

It is worth saying that fate played a very cruel joke on Cook, because he was unable to discover Antarctica - what a triumph that would have been, crowning his entire legendary career. But even when he turned back, he was only two hundred miles from the nearest shore. It was not noted or suggested that the southernmost point Cook reached was significantly further south - in some cases more than three hundred miles - than about half the coastline of Antarctica. Between approximately 170°E - the longitude at which New Zealand's South Island is located - and 10°W, which lies midway between Cape Town and the east coast of South America - the approximate semicircle of Antarctica's high latitude coastline lies between the Indian and Atlantic Oceans. Arctic Circle and 70° south latitude. It should be recalled that Cook penetrated further south than 71° south latitude. If he had made this southernmost penetration in the areas we spoke of above, he would, without a doubt (if he had been lucky with the pack ice), would have reached the shores of Antarctica. But as it happened, Cook was making his attempts in the high latitudes of the Pacific Ocean, where the coastline of Antarctica recedes greatly to the south, in some places at least seven hundred miles further south than in the Atlantic. But whether he discovered Antarctica or not, his journey in January 1774 will still remain one of the most incredible ever undertaken by man.

Having thus proved beyond doubt that Dalrymple's mythical continent did not exist in either the Indian or the Pacific Oceans - there was still an insignificant possibility that a very small continent might be found in the South Atlantic - Cook, to the great relief of Forster Sr., turned " Resolution" to the north.

Now he was faced with the question: what to do next? He had accomplished almost everything he set out to do in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and could perfectly well be heading home. Cape Horn was not too far away and he could be in the Atlantic in just a few weeks. Or, if he wished, he could repair the ship and spend the winter in Cape Town, and then make a new raid into the polar regions the following summer. But none of these options were to Cook's liking. When research fever enters a person's blood, the only way the disease develops is by constantly getting worse, and Cook was an incurable case. Apart from a few islands with unclear locations, the entire South Pacific remained an unexplored wilderness. What could be more obvious? What further action would be most appropriate in this case?

Cook gathered his officers and sailors—if he wanted to extend the voyage another year, the least he could do was give them an opportunity to express their opinions—and laid out his proposals. He wants to find the land supposedly discovered by Juan Fernandez in the eastern Pacific Ocean, and then go to Easter Island. (Cook did not have much faith that he would find them. The source of information about the existence and position of the first was none other than Alexander Dalrymple himself, and Cook's confidence in him reached an extremely low level; Easter Island existed, there was no doubts, but, as Cook wrote, about its location “there were such varied indications that I had almost no hope of finding it.”) From the place where they were, he proposed to go west across the Pacific Ocean, no traveler had before I have not sailed this route. He then intended to sail to New Zealand, cross the Pacific again, round Cape Horn by November, and then spend the summer in the high latitudes of the south Atlantic before sailing home via Cape Town. In enumeration, this does not look so colossal. In fact, it was a huge journey that could not be completed in less than eleven months.

There was not a single voice against: everyone seemed to be delighted with these plans. The fact is that for a Royal Navy sailor, both then and now, the most beautiful view of land opens up when you look at it from the gangplank. Perhaps they were so happy that they escaped the icy embrace of Antarctica that they were voluntarily and joyfully ready to agree to anything. It is more likely that many of them themselves suffered from research impatience. But most likely, they understood that they constituted an elite participating in achievements that no one had succeeded before, and it was they who made history with their own hands, and such things happen because their almost deified captain makes them happen. It is difficult to determine exactly what effect Cook's personality had on his team, but it is clear that the effect lay somewhere between "immense" and "colossal." The enormous prestige that the very fact of serving on the Resolution gave them also played a role: fifty years later, when some of the young men who were on board were old, they had only to say: “I sailed with Captain Cook,” and they immediately turned into special people.

The land of Juan Fernandez - to no one's surprise - never materialized: for Cook, Dalrymple's authoritative statement that it was there, with such and such coordinates, was a guarantee that it did not exist. On February 23, the researcher came to the conclusion that this land simply did not exist, and he headed in the direction where, in his opinion, Easter Island was most likely to be located.

It was at this point that serious concerns arose for Cook's health. He experienced enormous physical and mental stress; he spent most of the time during this voyage in Antarctica and was exposed to severe cold on deck. And unhealthy food did not contribute to good health. Now he was in bed with gallbladder colic, his body was not taking any food or medicine, and his condition was rapidly deteriorating from serious to critical. Apparently he was suffering from some kind of gallbladder infection. And undoubtedly, only the devoted and tireless attention of the ship's doctor - his name was Patten - saved his life.

When Easter Island appeared on the horizon on March 12, Cook appeared on deck again, still weak, but recovering. The Resolution sailed along the coast in search of a natural harbor, but there was none. The ship's crew stood along the side and looked in amazement at the massive stone statues that littered the entire island: some stood on the slopes of the hill, some on massive stone platforms. When the expedition members landed ashore, they found many more statues lying on their sides and almost completely overgrown with tall grass. The natives, who turned out to be quite friendly, had no idea who built these statues or when. Cook's theory that the Polynesians were incapable of art and technology and could not carve stone and raise these gigantic statues, and therefore this is the work of some earlier, more advanced civilizations, now disappeared, is undoubtedly correct. But the origin of the famous stone Easter idols remains a mystery today.

Easter Island turned out to be a poor source of provisions. They didn't even manage to get fresh water there. Cook decided to sail to the Marquesas Islands, discovered by the Spaniards almost two centuries earlier; he wanted to clarify their position, which was unclear, and hoped to replenish food supplies there. On the way to the Marquesas Islands, Cook fell ill again, his life was again in danger. But the care of a dedicated doctor helped him recover. On April 7, the Marquesas Islands appeared, and the next day the Resolution dropped anchor in Waitahu Bay on the island of Tehuata.

The islanders turned out to be very friendly, and although it was not possible to get fresh meat, there was an abundance of fruit and some vegetables. What particularly struck the English, and the opinion on board was apparently unanimous, was the appearance of the Marquesans. Slender and graceful people, whose skin was so fair that women and children could easily be mistaken for Europeans, were the most beautiful race that Cook and his team encountered not only in Oceania, but throughout the world.

Now Cook headed to the places that essentially became his second home - Tahiti. After a nine-day voyage that passed through the Tuamotu Islands, a widely scattered group of coral atolls, Cook tried to land on one of them, but the natives made it clear that they did not want the presence of strangers, so he continued on his way and, on April 22, anchored at Mataiea Bay on Tahiti.

The reception was usual - enthusiastic. The island, which had scarcely one pig left when they last left it, was now full of these animals. Cook bought so many of them that he had to build a pig shed on the shore. He already felt the shortage of goods for exchange, but discovered an excellent substitute for currency - a large number of red feathers, which they had collected the previous autumn on the Friendship Islands; Cook did not know then that red was considered the sacred color of the Tahitian god Oro, and red feathers, which, as it turned out, could not be obtained in Tahiti, were a necessary attribute for the performance of a certain religious ceremony.

While Cook and some of his officers and scientists were on shore, they were invited to become spectators of a most extraordinary spectacle that took place in the neighboring bay, where the capital of Papeete is now located. The Tahitians were preparing to land on the neighboring island of Moorea, whose leader rebelled against Tahiti: it was a dress rehearsal in costume. A large war fleet, consisting of twin boats, filled the entire bay. Some of these boats were almost as long as the Resolution. At the stern of these ships, platforms were built for warriors armed with spears, clubs and a huge supply of stones. (An amazing thing is that throughout Polynesian Oceania - and nowhere else in the world - stones were the most common offensive weapon.) Counting the rowers, who also joined the battle if necessary, there were about forty warriors on each boat. Cook counted at least 160 boats; in addition, he noticed almost as many smaller boats, which he considered to be ammunition supply ships and transport boats.

Reports from the time describe how large some of these war boats were: they could accommodate up to two hundred oarsmen and warriors, and this seems very plausible. In any case, the spectacle was impressive, with hundreds of boats and thousands of soldiers lining up for the military review.

Cook, out of caution, did not wait for hostilities to begin. This time the departure was especially painful because Cook told them sadly that he would never return to Tahiti. In fact, he returned three years later.

From Tahiti they went to Huahine and Raiatea in the archipelago of the Society Islands, known to them almost as Tahiti. There they stocked up on provisions, and there, languishing with homesickness, Odiddy returned to his family. From there they sailed west to the Friendship Islands. They passed an island to which they gave the name Palmerston Island, a coral atoll from the Cook Archipelago. A few days later they approached a larger island, where they were met with a hail of arrows and stones, and were unable to land. Island Savage (Wild) - that’s what Cook called it, and for good reason, because if he had not quickly moved from one side to the other, he would have been pierced by an arrow. The descendants of the stone throwers, by the way, claim that their ancestors were killed, and the people of Niue - the original name of the island, which it still bears today - were actually quite friendly.

Cook went to the Friendship Islands, whose population turned out to be as friendly as the inhabitants of Tahiti. When he returned to these places three years later, he spent no less than three months idly cruising between these islands, apparently unable to find the strength to leave them. But in this case he did not stay long. It was already the end of June, he wanted to round Cape Horn in November, and before that he decided to look for a group of islands between the Friendship Islands and the Australian coast, the existence of which was claimed by both Quiros and Bougainville. From the Friendship Islands - Tonga - Cook sent the Resolution west with a slight deviation to the north and passed the Fiji Islands, which lay just north of his route. The first island of the Great Cyclades - that's what Bougainville called this archipelago - an island called Maevo, appeared on July 17. And from that moment on, Cook was in a labyrinth of islands - there were about eighty of them here: the Great Cyclades archipelago stretched for five hundred miles - a huge field for the application of Cook's cartographic talent.

It turned out that two races, two cultures met in the Greater Cyclades - Polynesians and darker-skinned Negroid Melanesians. They differed markedly in temperament: uncompromising hostility towards strangers seems to have been a character trait only of the Melanesians. When Cook landed on two predominantly Melanesian islands, Malekula and Erromanga, he was met with cold hostility, which turned hot on Erromanga when the natives attempted to take possession of the Resolution's boats. Stones flew into the air, the natives used spears and arrows; the sailors from the Resolution were forced to resort to muskets to save their lives. Several natives were killed and many wounded; two English sailors were also wounded.

For this, Cook blamed only himself: “We entered their ports and tried to land on land in the most peaceful manner. If this had succeeded, everything would be fine; if not, we would still have landed on the shore and defended ourselves, thanks to the superiority of our weapons. How else can they view us other than as invaders of their country?” This theme appears more than once in Cook's diaries. Unlike the overwhelming majority of his compatriots - and Europeans in general - he was very well aware and felt that they were forcefully invading the life of a people who had been completely happy before their appearance, taking by force what rightfully belonged to others, and that over time time, the coming of the white man could harm and bring destruction to these peoples of Oceania. Such a thought truly frightened Cook: paradoxically, or just so it seems, but when it came to the rapid annexation of new territories to the possessions of the crown, there was no one among the pioneers who could compare with Cook. But in reality there is no paradox, just the eternal struggle between duty and conscience.

The Polynesian part of the Greater Cyclades met Cook quite differently. He was desperate for water and firewood and tried his luck on the southernmost of the large islands of the group, Tanna, which had an active volcano. It was settled by Polynesians, and although the initial reception was cold, friendships eventually developed, despite the fact that one of the natives was killed by a sentry for no apparent reason.

The natives of the island of Tanna were eager to trade, and Cook was able, to his satisfaction, to replenish the supply of fresh meat. When Cook, after this most pleasant stay in Oceania, left the island, in his friendliness he equated them with the Tahitians and natives of the Friendship Islands; he had to record two observations: he considered Tanna to be the most fertile island in the Pacific, which he attributed to the volcanic ash that regularly fell on the island, and, moreover, he called it the most beautiful place he had ever seen. Coming from Cook, a dedicated Tahitian, such a remark is indeed a great compliment.

Cook headed north to complete his charting of the Great Cyclades once more, then turned south towards New Zealand. According to Cook, Bougainville, the French explorer, barely touched this group of islands, while he, Cook, visited all the large and many small islands and carried out a thorough topographical survey and mapped everything, not forgetting to give out new names as he sailed past . Accordingly, Cook believed that he had more rights to this than Bougainville, and gave the entire archipelago the name New Hebrides and annexed it to the king's dominions. To this day, this archipelago is predominantly English - part of the Anglo-French joint possession.

They walked south until September 3, when they saw a mountainous island rising out of the sea right in front of them. A number of dangerous reefs and shoals were visible to the north, so Cook headed up along the eastern shore until he found a suitable anchorage. The natives of these islands - a race unfamiliar to Cook - turned out to be very hospitable, and the Resolution remained there for about a week. Intensive farming flourished on the land where Cook found inhabitants very similar to the Australians - friendly and very funny people.

During this stay, Cook climbed the mountain and discovered that this island, shaped like the back of a whale, was about thirty-five miles wide. When they set sail again, they were surprised by its length from south to north - about two hundred and fifty miles. Cook realized that, apart from New Zealand, this must be the largest island in Oceania, and, as usual, he was right. Ignoring its local name, Balad, Cook replaced it with New Caledonia.

On October 10, they came across a small, uninhabited but fertile island, which Cook named Norfolk. They stopped on it just long enough to annex it to the possessions of the British king, and then headed further along the western coast of the North Island to Queen Charlotte Sound, where they arrived on October 18.

They spent three weeks in the bay, stocking up on water and wood and getting the Resolution in the best possible condition before the next long leg of the voyage - around Cape Horn to Cape Town, before which they would not be able to stock up on provisions anywhere. From the tree trunks cut with a saw, Cook realized that another ship had been here. The message he left for Furneaux was not there. Using the language of graphic representations, Cook was able to find out from the Maori the approximate date of the Adventure's sailing.

Cook noticed that the Maori had changed since he was last here, almost a year ago. Then they were friendly, sociable; now they were reserved, shy, cautious. It was only when Cook sailed to Cape Town and received a letter left for him by Furneaux and learned of a case of cannibalism that he realized that the Maori of Queen Charlotte Sound had reason to be afraid.

The Resolution left the Gulf on November 10th and sailed southeast until it was a thousand miles south of its starting point, then turned east, making very fast progress to Cape Town, leaving strong westerly winds behind it, at about 55 th parallel. Furneaux traveled approximately the same route, and neither one nor the other captain encountered any trace of Dalrymple's mainland.

The journey to Cape Town was uneventful. Cook even wrote down that it was boring. They spent Christmas in the Terra del Fuego area, where they collected plants, made a map, collected supplies of water and food, and then on December 29 rounded Cape Horn and headed into the Atlantic.

Cook's last goal was to cross the South Atlantic in high latitudes, where, in his opinion, it was in vain to look for land - part of the great Southern Continent, the existence of which Dalrymple and other famous geographers had expressed, so confident of its existence that they had even drawn a map of it in advance. So Cook again advanced into areas of ice, bitter cold and thick, blinding fog. He discovered South Georgia - a lifeless, bare and sad island of ice and snow, devoid of population and completely unfit for any purpose, but this certainly did not prevent Cook from going ashore and annexing it to the British possessions. Then he discovered a useless group of islands, which he also annexed, and called them the South Sandwich Islands, and to the south of them another lifeless piece of land, which he called South Thule.

In addition, Cook searched everywhere and everywhere, but did not find a trace of that land of Dalrymple, not to mention the Southern Continent, for a reason that had long ago become obvious to Cook - it simply was not here. Cook has been looking for Bouvier's Circumcision Island for the past couple of weeks and has been unable to find it. His new route crossed the one he took about two years ago when he first crossed the Antarctic Circle. He circled the globe in an area of ​​such high latitudes that such a journey was considered absolutely impossible, and finally buried Dalrymple’s dream, proving that no Southern continent existed. Cook was given a task, or, if you prefer, he set it for himself, and he completed it.

Now it was time to sail home, if only because he had nothing left to explore in the Southern Hemisphere. On March 21, he sailed to Cape Town, where repairs had to be carried out, which took five weeks. There he was given a letter left by Furneaux, from which he learned about the tragedy that took place in Queen Charlotte Bay.

The Resolution's return route lay through St. Helena and the Azores. On July 30, 1775, the ship dropped anchor at Spithead, three years and eleven days after the start of what is still the greatest geographical expedition.

NORTHWEST PASSAGE

At the end of the second journey there was no doubt, as, indeed, this can be said about the first journey, to whom his glory and honor belonged. Cook became the hero of the day and, oddly enough, without much fanfare, a national hero. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. He was awarded the Copley Gold Medal for an article on health issues at sea (his introduction of strict regulations to combat scurvy was not mentioned). In this entire incredible journey, Cook lost only one person - and not from scurvy. The confidence in him from the Lords of the Admiralty was unlimited, he was received by the King, he was appointed commander of the seventy-four-gun cruiser HMS Kent, then received the post of captain at Greenwich Hospital - this was the Admiralty's way of making it clear that even at the age of forty-seven he had already done enough and earned an honorable - and full - pension.

Cook himself was not so sure about this sinecure. He wrote to a friend: “As for my salary, I am thrown from one extreme to the other. A few months ago the whole Southern Hemisphere was not large enough for me, but now I am going to content myself with the boundaries of Greenwich Hospital, which is too small for my active character. I must admit that this is a wonderful retirement and a good income. But whether I can fall in love with peace and solitude, time will tell.”

Cook needn't have worried. The time for peace and solitude had not yet come, and, which was the tragedy of his life, should never have come.

Rumors have already spread about plans for a third big voyage, but this time not to the South Seas. While Cook was busy rewriting for publication the diary of the second voyage - having read the monstrous opus into which Hawkesworth had turned his previous diary, he was determined to do it himself - the Admiralty was considering the feasibility, feasibility and prudence of an attempt to force the mythical Northwest Passage. The idea was that there should be a passage between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans around the top of North America. Over the years, many attempts have been made associated with the names of Cabot and Frobisher, Hudson and Baffin. At the end of the last century, Baffin reached amazingly high northern latitudes - 77 ° 45 "N latitude, almost halfway between the Arctic Circle and the Pole - an achievement that was not surpassed by anyone a hundred years after Cook. But even Baffin was unable to find the Northwest Passage .

The Admiralty decided to try again. However, this time it intended to kill two birds with one stone. It was known that in 1742, Bering, a Swede in the service of the Russian fleet, discovered that there was a strait between the Asian continent and the northwestern tip of North America, which is now called Alaska. It was decided that two expeditions would set out, one to approach the proposed Passage from the Atlantic, and the other from the Pacific.

The attack from the Atlantic would be carried out by the frigate "Lion", commanded by Cook's old friend Richard Pickersgill, and from the Pacific Ocean two ships would be sent - "Resolution" and "Discovery" - a new "coal miner" from Whitby, which the Admiralty acquired on Cook's advice.

The Lords of the Admiralty were faced with the question of who would command the Pacific expedition. Of course, the undoubted candidate was Cook, not only the best of all, but the only one. But the Admiralty, given Cook's enormous achievements and the fact that he had been given a well-deserved, highly paid retirement, was clearly reluctant to call on him again. And they developed an extremely cunning and inventive plan, in their opinion: to talk to him during an elegant dinner, which was attended by Lord Sandwich - the First Lord of the Admiralty, Palliser - the head of the General Financial Office of the Fleet and Stevens - the Secretary of the Admiralty. Having met with him, they asked his advice on who should command the Pacific expedition. It would be superfluous to add that when Cook rose from the table, he was already the commander of the expedition.

Cook's first mate was John Gore, who sailed with him on the Endeavor and with Wallis on the Dolphin; James King, an experienced astronomer, was appointed second assistant, and John Williamson was appointed third. The navigator was a man who later became almost as famous as Cook himself - William Bligh.

Captain James Clark, Cook's close friend and one of the most experienced sailors of his time, was appointed commander of the Discovery - he circumnavigated the world with Byron and twice with Cook, so this voyage was his fourth great voyage. It also became his last journey. Like Cook, he left his bones on the Pacific shores. His first assistant was James Burney, his second was John Rickman. Among his sailors was George Vancouver (also sailing with Cook on the Resolution), who was later destined to become a famous explorer. More than twenty members of the expedition had already sailed with Cook, some even twice. And among the latter was Samuel Gibson of the Marine Corps (now a sergeant), whom Cook had once ordered to be flogged for deserting a ship and running into the mountains with a native girl during their first visit to Tahiti. Obviously, Gibson was a man who didn't hold a grudge. Omai, a Tahitian whom Furneaux had brought to England, was to sail with them.

On July 12, 1776, four years without one day after sailing on the previous voyage, Captain Cook set sail again for the Pacific Ocean. He had to set off alone, because the unlucky Clark, captain of the Discovery, was languishing in prison at that time for debt - he was the guarantor of the debts of his brother John Clark, who set off on a foreign voyage without paying them. He was eventually released, and Discovery set sail on August 1 - not an auspicious start to the voyage. It is believed that during his imprisonment, Clark contracted tuberculosis, which led to his death.

James Cook crossed the Antarctic Circle for the first time in history Photo: www.history.com

January 17, 1773 crew captain James Cook crossed the Antarctic Circle for the first time in history. His ship Resolution was the first ship to ever reach that latitude in the South. This was done during the second trip around the world in 1772-1775.

Cook's second expedition began in July 1772. It was then that the crew of the ships Resolution and Adventure sailed from England to Antarctica in search of the Great Southern Continent. There were many scientists on board the ships who studied the southern latitudes.

During the expedition, Captain Cook and his crew faced many disappointments and dangers. Cook reports about them in the logbook. Namely, on December 11, 1772, the crew of the ship Resolution, seeing something big ahead, incorrectly assumed that the Southern Continent was ahead. In reality it was just an iceberg.

By the end of this day, the ship found itself among the ice. It was in this ice and cold fog that James Cook lost sight of the second ship Adventure, under the command of Tobias Furneaux. Here is what Cook wrote in his diary about this: “Here we encountered ice, the ships were separated in thick fog.”

In May 1773, they met, as agreed, in Charlotte Bay in the Pacific Ocean off New Zealand, from where they again headed west.

James Cook wrote in his diary in January 1774: “At 4 o’clock in the morning a dazzling white stripe was noticed in the south - a harbinger of nearby ice fields. Soon from the mainmast they saw a solid ice barrier stretching from east to west over an immense space.”

When Cook saw the ice-covered land of Antarctica, he decided that it was just an ice barrier. Therefore, I did not take it for a continental coast, but decided that in the Pacific Ocean in the south of the mainland did not exist at all.

The second attempt to find the Southern Continent did bring positive results. It was during this time that Cook discovered and mapped islands such as New Caledonia, the South Sandwich Islands and South Georgia in the south Atlantic Ocean.

Cook's achievement remains the discovery of Australia, an unknown continent where no European had set foot before. In total, Cook made three trips around the world.

In 1779, Cook was killed by aborigines on the islands of Haiti. At first they took Cook for some kind of deity and began to worship him. However, this did not stop them from stealing some things from Cook's ship. Then the captain got angry and took the local king hostage. Then the islanders took Cook prisoner. At the end of February 1779 he was killed. The team was subsequently provided with the head of the deceased. Cook's lower jaw was severed. The body parts were distributed to shamans. According to local laws, this is how the tribe acted with the strongest warriors and rivals.

Chapter 5. You have to be born a gentleman, you can become a god

The name of the person who discovered the island remains forever in the geographical chronicle. What then can we say about Cook, who discovered not even dozens, but hundreds of islands!

Ships under his command circumnavigated the globe three times and crossed the equator six times. Cook crossed the Antarctic Circle for the first time in history; Cook became the first person to visit both the Arctic and Antarctica; he truly “traversed” the whole world.

It is probably simply impossible to compile a complete list of Captain Cook's geographical discoveries. He mapped the entire east coast of Australia and New Caledonia, the Hawaiian Islands and South Georgia, New Zealand, the Society Islands, the Tonga Archipelago, the Marquesas Islands, the New Hebrides, the Tuamotu Archipelago, the northwest coast of North America...

James Cook is known to us as the greatest navigator, but... But as a person, he is almost unknown to us. His English biographer writes: “We know everything about Cook and at the same time nothing.”

For twenty-three years, almost half his life, Cook methodically kept a detailed diary day after day. He described the weather and ship operations, and noted shift changes. The diary gives a comprehensive picture of what Cook did, but not what he thought or what he was like.

For sixteen years he was married to Elizabeth Betts. But in the diaries her name is not mentioned even once, and in personal correspondence known to biographers only twice, and even then in passing. The names of six children are not mentioned even once in the diaries or letters. It is only known that three of them died in infancy, three in childhood.

English biographer Alistair Maclean writes: “To protect your personal life from prying eyes requires considerable skill. However, Cook succeeded in this.”

All we know about his parents is that they were both day laborers on a farm in Yorkshire. From the age of six, James also worked as a laborer.

In 1745 (he was not quite seventeen) Cook moved to a neighboring town and became a grocer's apprentice. The shop stood on the very shore of the sea; during a storm, the waves licked its threshold.

I would like to say that the sea beckoned to Cook. But perhaps the situation was simpler: the sea promised a more prosperous life.

In the fall of 1746, he became a cabin boy on a cat, a ship that transported coal. Cook visited Norway, Holland, the Baltic ports, in particular St. Petersburg. In the intervals between flights, young James - this can be said reliably - is completely absorbed in reading and self-education. He is engaged in navigation, mathematics and astronomy. Nine years later, the shipowners offer him the position of skipper on a catboat. What more could a farmhand's son dream of? But Cook, for reasons unknown to us, refuses. At twenty-seven years old, he voluntarily enlists as a sailor on a warship. Why? You can make any assumptions here.

It was believed that sailor service was worse than hard labor. Yes, that's how it was. The sailors lived in cramped quarters, ate biscuits and corned beef, they were flogged for the slightest offense, their ears were cut off for disobedience, or... they were dragged under the keel. Scurvy, typhus, and stomach diseases were rampant on the ships. It is known that only 1,512 English sailors died in battles during the Seven Years' War (1756-1763). Diseases claimed another fifty thousand lives!

Truly, sailor service was worse than hard labor! Not many went to serve on Her Majesty's ships of their own free will. More often, recruiters got the simpletons drunk in port taverns and brought the “volunteers” on board dead drunk.

Cook actually became a sailor voluntarily...

And again gradual promotion: co-navigator, boatswain, navigator. Cook said that he dragged himself (“I draggedmyself...”) through all types of naval service.

During the Seven Years' War, Cook takes part in the siege of Quebec. Already a navigator, he is tasked with mapping the St. Lawrence River. And under the fire of French cannons, he takes measurements, again and again placing milestones on the fairway.

After the war - hydrographic survey of Newfoundland and Labrador. Five long years. Favorite, but tiresomely monotonous work: hundreds of miles of sounding tacks, thousands, tens of thousands of bearings.

And the result is new and new cards. Excellent cards, let's add. The sailing directions of Newfoundland and Labrador, compiled in 1763-1767, were then used for a century.

Cook's abilities and talent have long been noticed; he is considered the best navigator in the fleet. But...

But Cook is already thirty-nine years old, and he is still a non-commissioned officer. According to the Lords of the Admiralty, only a gentleman can be an officer, and a gentleman must be born, but cannot be made.

Determining the location of a ship on the open ocean continued to be a very difficult task at that time. Often an island was discovered, put on the map and... again “lost” for many decades.

England was then waging an intense struggle with France for new colonial possessions. It is clear that such “losses” did not suit the Lords of the Admiralty. To their indignation, the round-the-world expedition, headed by John Byron, the grandfather of the great English poet, ended with virtually no results. Byron completely lost his bearings in the ocean and, as the English author writes, “returned home by pure chance without discovering a single island.”

In 1768, the British began organizing a new expedition. Formally, she was supposed to go to one of the islands of the Pacific Ocean to observe a rare astronomical phenomenon - the passage of Venus between the Earth and the Sun. But in fact, the purpose of the expedition was still to search and seize new lands.

Cook's reputation as a navigator and cartographer was so great that, contrary to all traditions, it looks like a fairy tale! - the son of a farm laborer becomes an officer, a ship commander, and the head of a round-the-world expedition.

For the voyage, Cook chose not a frigate or a cruiser, but an unsightly cat. It was called "Indevr" ("Attempt"). On the same coal-mining ships, Cook will go on both his second and third voyages. “The coal miners resembled a wooden shoe and a coffin at the same time,” writes Cook’s biographer. But they could withstand a strong storm, were easy to move and, thanks to their shallow draft, could come almost close to the shore.

Each voyage lasted about three years. Often for several months the sailors saw nothing but a raging sea. Many times a day they climbed onto the yards to lower or raise the sails.

"Indevre"

Now twenty to thirty people sail on ships of this displacement (about 400 tons). And they often complain about cramped conditions and lack of amenities. There were about a hundred people on board each of Cook's ships. And also guns and ammunition for them, goods for trade with the natives. And of course, a supply of food for three years.

Cook was a son of his time, he could not help but be. He was a strict and even cruel commander. But at the same time, he took every possible care of the crew’s health: he introduced fresh meat, sauerkraut, and pine broth into the mandatory diet, and stocked up on fresh vegetables and fruits at every call.

Heinrich Zimmermann, who was a participant in the third voyage, left the most detailed description of Cook the captain, Cook the man:

“Cook was a handsome, strong, tall, but slightly stooped man. Dark brown-haired. His face was rather stern.

He was extremely strict and so hot-tempered in character that the slightest contradiction on the part of officers or sailors greatly irritated him and infuriated him. He was merciless regarding the implementation of the ship's regulations and just as mercilessly punished for violation of them. If anything was stolen from us by one of the natives, the watchman was severely punished for his negligence.

Probably no captain had such complete power over the officers subordinate to him. None of them ever dared to contradict him. He usually sat at the table in the wardroom without saying a word. He was really very uncommunicative and reserved. For little things, ordinary sailors were punished more severely than officers, but from time to time he was extremely friendly towards the crew.

He never mentioned religion and did not want to have a priest on his ship, although he celebrated the resurrection of Christ. He was a just and honest man in all his actions and never blasphemed even in anger.

He was scrupulously clean and insisted that all people on board follow him in this regard. On Sundays, each crew member was required to wear a clean dress.

Moderation was one of his main virtues. During the entire voyage, no one had ever seen him drunk. Any member of the crew who happened to be too drunk to keep watch was punished very harshly.

Cook ate very little, mainly sauerkraut, corned beef and some peas.

On Saturdays he was usually more good-natured than on other days, and often drank an extra glass of punch, proclaiming a toast “to all the lovely women.” However, there was never the slightest reason to suspect him of having relationships with women.

All crew members allowed themselves to “go astray” and often could not “resist” the native women. He alone remained pure and blameless.

In all other pleasures he was a supporter of equality. Food and drink were always, even in special circumstances, distributed equally between the officers and 5 sailors.

Everyone believed that he had some kind of secret gift to foresee danger and avoid it... There were often cases when only he “predicted” the appearance of the earth, and in this premonition he was always right.

He had an instinctive ability to communicate with the natives, and it was obvious that this communication gave him pleasure. He was very respectful of the islanders. However, when they stopped honoring him or laughed at him, he became furious. His anger at such moments was terrible, but he never punished with death. He had a special gift for communicating with the natives with gestures and did everything he could to please them, to earn their friendship with gifts, interesting stories, and entertained them with a demonstration of European costumes...

He constantly tried to keep people busy with work and, when there was nothing to do, he ordered the sails to be lowered and raised again or made some maneuvers to keep the crew busy. To this constant employment, combined with a moderate lifestyle, I attribute the fact that the health of the crew was excellent... Every week the whole ship was thoroughly washed and fumigated by burning gunpowder... the hammocks were carried daily on deck, where they remained until sunset...

Captain Cook constantly warned us against the intemperate consumption of meat, and always endeavored to provide us with flour for the preparation of other dishes in place of meat. Three times a week, part of our diet was sauerkraut. Whenever we approached the land, a special party was immediately sent to collect greens, which were boiled in soup. If, however, there was no vegetation, then the nets were cast so that we could have a supply of fresh fish and reduce the amount of meat in our diet. Always and everywhere his first concern was to provide us with fresh food...

On the American coast and in New Zealand we made something like beer. They cut off the shoots of various trees, boiled them in water, and then added to every 40 gallons of this water a quart of malt decoction and 5 or 6 pounds of sugar. It turned out to be a very pleasant and healthy drink, which we drank instead of brandy... although many accused Captain Cook of selfish economy, since by using this “beer” he saved supplies of brandy..."

It should be noted that not everyone liked the new diet introduced by Cook. The long-term habit of English sailors to biscuits and corned beef had an effect.

At the very beginning of the first voyage, Cook’s diary records: “For refusing to receive their ration of fresh meat, he punished sailor Henry Stevens and marine soldier Thomas Denster with twelve lashes.”

Cook later changed his tactics. For example, he began to defiantly consume huge quantities of cabbage and kept asking the cook for a pine decoction. Soon the sailors began to steal cabbage from the barrels standing in the hold.

Thanks to the new diet, there were almost no cases of scurvy on Cook's ships, although in other expeditions of that time a quarter or even half of the crew often died from it. It is characteristic that Cook was subsequently elected a member of the Royal Society of England not at all for his remarkable voyages and discoveries, but for the introduction of new rules of nutrition and hygiene on ships.

Despite Cook's strictness, many officers and sailors participated in all three of his voyages. Cook possessed a quality absolutely necessary for a captain - while punishing, he forgave. For example, he willingly took on his second voyage a certain marine who had been severely punished on the Endevre for attempting to desert. It is also significant here that the Marine again wanted to sail under Cook’s command.

Perhaps it cannot be said that the sailors loved him. The captain's reserve bordered on inaccessibility. Officers were often unhappy that Cook did not consult with them or discuss plans. He ruled. But after his first voyage they began to idolize him and worship him. “He was our guiding light,” wrote one officer.

The captain managed to infect the team with his determination, his thirst for discovering new lands. “He who follows orders from above to the letter will never become a true discoverer,” Cook wrote. He was a pioneer by the very nature of his character. Time after time he violated the letter of the Admiralty orders, he knew how and loved to take risks. “The fate of sailors,” we read in his diary, “is fraught with vicissitudes that always await them when sailing in unknown waters. If it were not for the satisfaction that the discoverer experiences even if only sands and shallows await him, this service would have been would be unbearable, especially in such remote places as this country, and with the scarcity of food supplies, the world will hardly forgive the traveler if, having discovered the land, he does not justify the hardships he endured and he is accused of cowardice and lack of perseverance - that’s all. they will unanimously declare him a person unsuitable for voyages made for the sake of discovery. On the other hand, if the navigator bravely faces all the dangers, but the results of the voyage are unsuccessful, he will be considered daring and unreasonable... It may seem that there was negligence on my part. to spend so much time among these islands and shoals... If we had not visited these places, we would not have been able to give any sensible answer... is this land a continent or a group of islands that lives and grows on it, is connected Is it with other lands?

Cook discovered Oceania to the world - myriads of islands and coral reefs in the southwestern part of the Pacific Ocean. Each of them was like a separate, unique little world with its own unusual fauna and flora.

Most of the Pacific islands were already inhabited before Europeans. According to scientists, unknown to us sailors of Southeast Asia reached the islands of Tonga long before the beginning of our era, at the beginning of our era - Tahiti and the Marquesas Islands, then Hawaii and Easter Island, and in the 11th - 12th centuries - New Zealand. At a time when European ships were still timidly huddling to the shores, Polynesian and Micronesian sailors boldly went into the open ocean. They had an equally good understanding of both the map of the starry sky and the map of sea currents. They navigated by the constellations and the color of the sea water, by the reflections in the sky of distant coral lagoons and by the subtle smell of land carried by the night breezes.

Kanaka - "people" - they called themselves.

An old Polynesian song says:

The handle of my steering oar is eager for action - It leads me to a foggy, unclear horizon, To a horizon that stretches before us, To a horizon that is forever running away, To a horizon that is always approaching, To a horizon that inspires doubt, To a horizon, which inspires horror... This is a horizon with an unknown force, a horizon beyond which no one has ever penetrated.

Cook owes many of his discoveries to a young Tahitian priest named Tupia. He compiled a map of Oceania for Cook, on which he plotted seventy-four islands scattered within a radius of up to two thousand miles from Tahiti. He even approximately indicated the azimuths of these islands!

Cook, as you know, did not receive any formal education. But he was an excellent, thoughtful observer, and his diary entries about the life of the natives retain scientific value to this day.

Soviet ethnographer S.A. Tokarev writes: “Captain Cook’s ethnographic notes are distinguished - this has been pointed out more than once and for a long time - primarily by their great accuracy and reliability. Cook was sometimes able to see more clearly and understand more accurately than another professional scientist, what appeared to his eyes. He saw not only the external facts - the type, clothing, jewelry, behavior of the natives, he was able to recognize social relations, he even understood the languages ​​of the native population, very quickly mastered them enough to communicate with the locals without an interpreter. The main thing, perhaps, lies in the great scientific, scientific, although Cook did not belong to the scientific class, the conscientiousness of his observations and records; he always sharply distinguished between what he himself saw and understood and what was possible. was supposed - a distinction that we do not always find among professional ethnographers of later and even our time."

In most cases, the natives greeted the British hospitably. It is not for nothing that one of the archipelagos was named the Friendship Islands.

Cook loved the natives in his own way. “The most beautiful people not only in the Pacific Ocean, but in the whole world,” he writes about the inhabitants of the Marquesas Islands. And he calls the population of the island of Elua “a beautiful people on a beautiful island.”

However, all this did not prevent the English navigator from taking hostages every now and then for the most insignificant reasons, for example, because of a “stolen” trinket.

And of course, Cook did not hesitate to use force if the meeting was unfriendly. What could the aborigines do with their spears and clubs against rifles and cannons? Despite resistance, Cook landed on the island and planted the English flag.

Cook's biographer enthuses: "One man, in the space of just two months, added New Zealand to England's colonies, followed by Australia." Cook understood the terrible misfortunes European “civilization” was bringing to the natives. “To the great shame of civilized Christians,” he wrote, “we have corrupted the natives... and after becoming acquainted with us, they began to have needs that the natives had never known before, and they only disturbed the happy tranquility in which their fathers lived and in which they themselves enjoyed."

"Colonization" is no less cruel a word than "conquest". Fifty years after Cook, the population of Tahiti decreased tenfold. A hundred years later, the Maori - the inhabitants of New Zealand - and the Aborigines of Tasmania were almost completely destroyed.

James Cook's first circumnavigation of the world lasted two years, ten months and seventeen days. On July 13, 1771, Endevre returned to England, and a month later Cook was received by the king. Lieutenant Cook became captain 3rd rank. It seems that even then there was talk of a new expedition. This second voyage (1772-1775) is rightfully considered the most important event in the development of geographical concepts of the 18th century.

Since ancient times, people have been confident in the existence of a huge continent in the southern hemisphere. According to Ptolemy, Terra Australis Incognita - the Unknown Southern Land - was a continuation of Africa and closed the Indian Ocean from the south in equatorial latitudes (approximately 15° S). On Ortelius' map (1570), the "Southern Land, not yet known" retreats into higher latitudes. Tierra del Fuego, discovered by Magellan, and New Guinea were considered peninsulas of this continent.

In 1606, the Spanish navigator Pedro Fernandez Quiros crossed the Pacific Ocean and discovered - we now know - the island of Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides archipelago. This island is twenty times smaller than Sicily, but Quiros believed that he had achieved his goal. He gave the country the sonorous name “Southern Land of the Holy Spirit” (Tierra Australia del Espirito Santo) and founded New Jerusalem here - the capital of the “huge” continent.

“This previously hidden Earth,” Quiros wrote to the Spanish king, “occupies a quarter of the world and as such is twice as large as all the kingdoms and provinces that your Majesty owns... Moreover, there are no Turks, Moors, or other peoples on its borders , which cause unrest and unrest. All open lands lie in a hot zone and in some places reach the equator, and from the equator they stretch to the south, in some places to the pole, and in others a little closer.”

In the middle of the 18th century, the so-called speculative geography flourished. The existence of the southern continent was now scientifically substantiated.

The name "Resolution" is usually translated as "Decision", but it is more correct to translate "Decision"

In vain did the French navigator Bougainville write mockingly about “scientists” “who, in the quiet of their offices, philosophize about the Earth and its inhabitants to the point of darkness, and stubbornly subjugate nature to the whims of their imagination.” In vain.

According to armchair geographers, the southern continent had to exist to “balance” the land masses of the northern 70th hemisphere.

Otherwise, the geographers said thoughtfully, the Earth would constantly be turned towards the Sun by the heavier northern half.

In addition, there was a strong belief that sea water could not freeze at all (in fact, it freezes at temperatures below zero degrees).

It was believed that all the ice of the Arctic Ocean formed on the rivers of Siberia and North America. And if so, then we could only assume that the ice and huge icebergs that sailors encountered in the southern latitudes carried the high-water rivers of an unknown continent into the ocean.

The English geographer Alexander Dalrymple calculated its length - no less than 8516 kilometers! And he even managed to calculate the population of the Southern continent - 50 million people!

"Resolution" and "Adventure" in the ice of the Southern Ocean. Cook first crossed the Antarctic Circle in 1773

The trouble was that ships very rarely came south of the 50th parallel.

Now Cook was ordered to “go around the globe in high latitudes...”

On July 13, 1772 - exactly one year after the return of Endevre - the cats Resolution and Adventure left Plymouth.

Cook became the first to cross the Antarctic Circle. This happened on January 17, 1773. The ships were not at all prepared for polar navigation, and the temperature in the cockpits was approximately the same as on the deck.

“The rigging was all frozen and decorated with icicles,” Cook wrote. “Our shrouds were like wire, the sails were like boards or metal sheets, and the pulleys were frozen to the blocks so that great efforts were required to lower or raise the topsails. The cold was unbearable, everything the sea is covered with ice."

Time after time, Cook repeated attempts to get as far south as possible. He followed the instructions of the Admiralty: he circumnavigated the world at high latitudes.

“The desire to achieve the goal took me not only further than all other people - my predecessors, but also further than the limit to which, as I believe, a person can generally reach,” Cook wrote. “The outer, or northern, edge of this huge ice field consisted of broken ice or ice fragments so closely packed that nothing could penetrate there, about a mile further on, solid ice began - one continuous compact body... In this field we counted 97 ice hills, or mountains, and very many of them were. extremely large... We could no longer move a single inch to the south, and therefore no other arguments are required to explain the need to return to the north; at that time we were in the latitude of 71 ° 10 "N. w. and in longitude 106°54"W."

By this time the ships had already separated. Tobias Furneaux, captain of the Adventure, considered his task completed and left for England. All the sailors of the Resolution were also sure that the voyage was ending. Everyone seemed to have forgotten about Cook’s obsession: after all, food supplies had not yet run out, the crew was healthy, and therefore the voyage must continue!

Midshipman John Elliott ( the rank of "midshipman" can be conditionally equated to the rank of "midshipman" in the Russian fleet) wrote then: “We were all terribly exhausted at that time, because while going to O (Ost. - Author), we got it into our heads that we were going straight to Cape Horn on the road to the house. Our supplies of tea, sugar and everything else quickly spent, in this regard, many hints were made to Captain Cook, but he only smiled and said nothing, so even his first mate did not know when we would leave any place and when we would come to the next. in all other respects, he was the most suitable person for such a voyage. And then all our hopes were dashed in an instant, because... instead of going to O, Captain Cook ordered the ship to be taken to S. We were extremely amazed, and he was. moment when there was almost a murmur on the ship."

Around the same time, Cook wrote in his diary: “I must pay tribute to my companions - under any circumstances they showed readiness to assist me in the success of my planned enterprises by all possible means. In this regard, it is hardly necessary to mention that the sailors were always efficient and obedient and in this case they did not at all want our journey to end. They were pleased with the prospect that the voyage would increase by a year.”

“So who was right, Elliott or Cook?” the biographer asks. “What did the team want - to immediately go to England or spend another one, or even two years in the southern seas and all this time experience hardships and homesickness? "

One thing can be said - midshipman John Elliott and captain James Cook looked at the world with different eyes. Tea, sugar? Are you all terribly exhausted? Murmur? What nonsense! We must do everything that is necessary, we must do everything that is possible. And then - do the impossible!

After Cook's voyage, there was no doubt: the “balancing continent” does not exist. “I have now circled the Southern Ocean in high latitudes,” Cook wrote, “and crossed it in such a way that there was no space left where the mainland could be located, except near the pole, in places inaccessible to navigation.”

It must be emphasized that Cook refuted and rejected only the existence of a huge “balancing” continent. “I will not deny,” he wrote, “that there may be a continent or land of significant size near the pole - on the contrary, I am of the opinion that such land exists there.”

But geographers were so shocked by the collapse of their theoretical conclusions that they tried to “forget” about the southern continent forever. Ironically, when Antarctica was already discovered, they continued to “not believe” in its existence. A funny impression is produced by maps compiled at the beginning of this century, on which hundreds and thousands of kilometers of the coast of the southern continent are plotted along the perimeter, and in the center, without hesitation, it is signed - “Southern Ocean”!

Probably, if Cook had made only one - his first - voyage, we would have called him a great navigator. He opened Oceania to the world! Now, after finishing the second, he has become the greatest. He made a revolution in geographical science. Cook's authority is indisputable. When Cook set off on his third and final voyage a year later, France and the United States made a completely unprecedented decision. Despite the war with the British, despite the fact that their ships on all oceans mercilessly sink all British ships - both military and commercial, despite all this, they will declare the ships of the English navigator James Cook inviolable.

The son of a farm laborer is at the zenith of glory!

Looking at the portrait of Cook, painted at this time, it is difficult to get rid of the impression that his entire appearance exudes some kind of all-crushing power. High forehead, straight nose, sharp facial features. Particularly expressive are the eyes, the look of which, even from a portrait, is not easy to maintain.

Cook was indifferent to fame; achieving the goal itself was the best reward for him. Just 12 days after returning to England, he sadly writes to an old friend: “... a few months ago the whole southern hemisphere seemed cramped to me, but now I am limited by walls...”

He was received by the king, received the rank of captain of the 1st rank, received the honorable and quiet position of Chief Warden of the Greenwich Naval Hospital... But less than a year had passed before he again ascended to the captain's bridge of the Resolution.

This time the main goal of the expedition was to search for the Northwest Passage - a sea route from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean, around the northern shores of North America.

"Resolution" and "Discovery" off Cape Ledyanoy (Alaska). August 1778

On July 12, 1776, the Resolution, under the command of Cook, set sail. On November 10, he was joined in Cape Town by Discovery under the command of Charles Clarke.

In the Pacific Ocean, Cook first headed for his beloved Friendship Islands, the Tonga archipelago. Here the ships lingered for a long time, moving aimlessly and leisurely from island to island.

It seems that the captain was simply tired. For many years (if we ignore childhood, exactly as long as he lived), Cook did not know rest, persistently moving up the ladder of life. In 1762 he married. But out of the past fifteen years, he was only at home for three years, in between expeditions. All this plus the crazy stress of two consecutive round-the-world voyages - six years! - could not help but have an impact. Of course he was tired. He became even colder, more unapproachable in his relations with his subordinates, and more cruel in his relations with the natives. Sometimes he was overcome by uncontrollable attacks of rage, when he could no longer control his actions. Midshipman J. Trevenen in his notes calls such seizures with the native word “heiva” and explains: “heiva is a dance among the islanders of the southern seas that is very reminiscent of convulsions.”

Perhaps this lack of restraint was the root cause of what happened subsequently?

After leaving the Tongan archipelago, the ships entered Tahiti and then headed north. Along the way, Cook discovered the Hawaiian Islands, but did not stop to explore them. He strove for the shores of Alaska, for the shores of the Arctic Ocean.

Alaska and the Aleutian Islands had already been discovered by Russian sailors and settled by Russian industrialists. The strait separating Asia from America was mapped. True, the world’s cartographers still had some doubts about the accuracy of Bering’s data, but Cook finally rejected them: “Giving tribute to Bering’s memory, I must say that he marked this coast very well, and determined the latitudes and longitudes of the capes with such accuracy that it is difficult was expected."

Cook himself named one of the bays in the Gulf of Alaska Bering Bay - Berings Bay. And later, one of the participants in his expeditions, naturalist G. Forster, introduced such names as are familiar to us - Bering Strait, Bering Sea...

The ice of the Chukchi Sea turned out to be insurmountable. First, Cook walked east along the coast of Alaska. It was stopped at Cape Ledyanoy. Then he turned west and reached Cape Northern (now Cape Schmidt). Winter was approaching. Cook did not accept defeat; he intended to repeat the attempt to find the Northwest Passage next summer. “I will not stop in my pursuit of the great goal of this journey,” he wrote. In the meantime, waiting for the summer, the ships returned to the Hawaiian Islands to complete their inspection, make the necessary repairs, and stock up on fresh provisions.

Perhaps nowhere was Cook greeted as much as in Hawaii. According to local legends, the god Lono - the god of happiness, the god of peace - left the islands a long time ago and sailed overseas. Sailed away, but must return.

Cook was accepted as a returning deity. One and a half thousand canoes came out to meet the ships. Hundreds of swimmers glided through the water like schools of fish. Thousands of islanders were waiting for Cook on the shore to prostrate themselves before the deity...

It's hard to be a god... The reason was generally insignificant, not even worth mentioning, but Cook lost his temper.

“The captain expressed regret that the behavior of the Indians forced him to use force,” writes one of the senior officers. “He said that in this case they should not hope to be able to defeat us ....” Once in a conversation, Cook remarked: “I can’t understand why Magellan needed to enter into an unnecessary skirmish with the natives.”

Now Cook himself led the punitive expedition and ordered the king of the Hawaiian Islands to be taken hostage... A crowd of thousands of excited natives surrounded the captain and the dozen soldiers accompanying him. A volley rang out. Cook himself shot and wounded the native. God of the world?! Cook turned his back to the crowd to approach the boat...

From the report of Lieutenant King: “He was already at the water's edge when one chief struck him in the neck and shoulder with a sharp iron stick; the captain fell face down into the water. The Indians rushed towards him with a loud cry, hundreds of them surrounded the body, finishing off the fallen man with daggers and clubs ..."

This happened on February 14, 1779 in Kealakekua Bay of the Hawaiian Islands... Only on February 22, Cook's remains - scalp, head without lower jaw, femur, forearm bones, hands - were buried at sea...

The British were thirsty for revenge. But Captain Charles Clarke, who led the expedition after Cook's death, showed wisdom. He forbade bloodshed, understanding that the killing was not premeditated.

“There are good reasons to suppose,” Clark wrote, “that the natives would not have gone so far if... Captain Cook had not fired at them...”

The last days of his life he was a deity for the natives. For many years he was a deity for sailors who participated in his expeditions.

Now the ships were destined to return to England without their captain.

After Cook's death, the expedition was led by 27-year-old Discovery captain Charles Clarke.

Charles Clarke also failed to complete the expedition. He died of tuberculosis during a repeated voyage in search of the Northwest Passage and was buried in Kamchatka, in Petropavlovsk. He was only 27 years old, but he became a sailor at twelve, and the last expedition was his fourth (!) circumnavigation of the world. He made three of them under the command of James Cook.

Of the participants in the last expedition alone, twelve became captains, one became an admiral. The names of many of them are widely known. After Clark's death, Captain James King led the Resolution to England, and Captain James Barney brought the Discovery. Captain George Vancouver later became famous for his exploration of the coast of Northwestern America. Captain Joseph Billings, having entered service in Russia, led an expedition to the Arctic Ocean, mapped Chukotka...

They say that even fifty years later, as soon as some former cabin boy said: “I sailed with Captain Cook,” hats were taken off to him. The great English navigator deserved his fame, as did those who stood next to him on the decks of ships. They went through a harsh school - it is difficult for us to imagine its severity.

Of course, Cook was an outstanding navigator, navigator and cartographer. But not only this determined the success of his expeditions. And not only this allowed him to raise a galaxy of brilliant captains.

On the second, main voyage, his ships were called "Resolution" and "Adventure". In Russian editions of Cook's diaries, these titles are usually translated as “Decision” and “Enterprise” - not a completely accurate translation. The word "resolution" also has a second meaning - "determination". And the word “adventure” means not just “enterprise”, but necessarily “risky enterprise”, “risk”.

“Resolve” and “Risk” - that’s what was written on the sides of Cook’s ships. This was the motto of his life.

One of the participants in his last expedition wrote: “Nature gifted him with a lively and extensive mind, the abilities of which he hardworkingly and persistently developed in his mature years. His knowledge was immense and varied, and in his profession he knew no equal. Possessing the ability to judge soberly, with great courage and perseverance, being especially inclined to action, he pursued the goal set before him with inflexibility and always remained extremely active and collected, calm and unperturbed in the face of danger; great and original in all his endeavors; energetic and persistent in carrying them out in life, in any difficult situation he was above everyone, having no rivals or competitors, all eyes were turned to him, he was our guiding star."

Captain James King noted: “Knowledge, experience, insight helped him to master his profession so comprehensively that the greatest obstacles were overcome and the most difficult voyages became easy and almost safe under his leadership...”

On the memorial, which was built in England in memory of Captain James Cook, the words are engraved:

"He possessed to an outstanding degree all the qualities required for great undertakings."

Let us ask ourselves: what is land? The Geographical Encyclopedic Dictionary, 1988 edition, states that land is that part of the earth's surface not covered by seas and oceans, that is, continents and islands. There is also an addition: “The concept of land usually does not include lakes and reservoirs.” What about glaciers? In some places on the maps they are labeled in blue, in others in black. Is this why the figures for the total land area differ? In some sources, 29.2 percent of the Earth's surface, in others 25. The question, of course, is to some extent theoretical: what difference does it make whether glaciers are considered land or a body of water? But because of this uncertainty, funny incidents have happened in the history of geography...

The closest acquaintance with the icy mountains and hills was in the 18th century by the participants of James Cook's second round-the-world expedition, among whom were two naturalists, Johann and Georg Forster. The famous English navigator and German scientists did not consider glacier ice (ice from glaciers) and firn ice (ice from snowfields) to be a rock and did not mistake them for land. This point of view, that ice is water in a solid state and nothing more, cost Cook... the non-discovery of the Ice Continent.

On January 30, 1774, the sloop "Resolution" reached a record southern latitude of 71° 10" for that time, and unusual lines for the southern water hemisphere of the Earth appeared in the captain's diary:

“At 4 o’clock in the morning, a dazzling white stripe was noticed in the south - a harbinger of nearby ice fields. Soon from the mainmast they saw a solid ice barrier (emphasis added V. Sh.). stretching from east to west over a vast expanse. The entire southern half of the horizon shone and sparkled with cold lights. I counted 96 summits and peaks along the edge of the ice field. Some of them were very tall...” (J. Cook. Journey to the South Pole and Around the World. M., 1948.)

What Cook and Forster saw on that clear day on the horizon is perceived ambiguously by geographers. Some believe that travelers saw an ice shelf barrier adjacent to modern Walgreen Beach. Other geographers, for example Konstantin Markov (K. Markov. Travel to Antarctica. M. 1957), were sure that “he, of course, could not see the continent at a distance of 150 km.”

And if Cook had called the continuous ice barrier the Coast, he would have been the discoverer of the southernmost continent of the Earth. The first geographical name on the future Ice Continent Trinity Land appeared only in the 19th century, when the Englishmen William Smith and E. Bransfield saw rock outcrops in the area of ​​the modern Antarctic Peninsula on January 18, 1820 (old style). Two days earlier, Thaddeus Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev discovered the land of the White Continent, but they, like Cook, did not give a name to the “ice field dotted with mounds” and “hardened ice of extreme height,” although they became the discoverers of Antarctica.

Subsequently, sailors in Antarctica did not give out geographical names to high natural objects composed of glacier and firn ice. So in the 19th and 20th centuries, maps showed “about. Emerald", "about. Dougherty", "Fr. Nimrod", "Fr. Pobeda”, discovered by Soviet polar explorers in the 60s. These islands were labeled black, although they turned out to be giant icebergs, destroyed quite quickly by the sea and warmer air after their discovery.

Sailors of past centuries took for land only those areas of the earth's surface that were composed of rocky or loose rocks, and they considered white and blue ice mountains to be “petrified water.” Although both G. Forster and J. Cook in January 1775 on the island of South Georgia “saw small blocks of ice being carried out into the sea from here, and heard a strong cracking sound of larger masses, which were apparently breaking up in the depths of the bay” (G. Forster . Travel around the world. M., 1986). So both Cook and Forster could well have connected into a single whole the numerous ice islands near the Antarctic Circle with the mainland or a huge island, from which they broke off during the warm season.

Ironically, among the participants in Cook's Antarctic expedition was a seventeen-year-old young man, Vedidei (O'Hedidi by G. Forster), born on the tropical island of Bolabola (Borabora) of the Society archipelago. The guy had never seen snow or ice before meeting the Forsters and Cook , so familiar to Europeans. But this did not stop the Bolabolian in December 1773 from calling the huge ice barrier he saw “Voenua Tita,” that is, “White Earth.”

Georg Forster, having heard about the “White Earth,” tried to prove to an uneducated young man, far from the physical geography of high latitudes, that high icy mountains, like low fields of pack ice, are just water in a solid state. The naturalist even took the inquisitive young man to a barrel of fresh water, where ice had formed after frost. It is a pity that in Cook’s second expedition around the world there was no hydrogeologist who would have told Vedidey, and at the same time Forster and Cook, that high ice islands are formed not from water in the liquid phase, but from solid atmospheric precipitation - snow, snow pellets, hail - which the observant Vedidei called them “white pebbles.”

If for a keen-eyed Bolabolan the high icy islands, shining mountains and hills in the south of the planet were the “White Earth,” then to the scientist G. Forster “it seemed as if before them were the wreckage of some destroyed world, or perhaps a corner of hell, as the poets describe it.” .

If Vedidei discovered the “White Land” for the aborigines of the Society archipelago, which he colorfully talked about on the island of Tahiti, then Cook for the Europeans discovered the “Sandwich Land”, which he took for the northern protrusion of the southernmost continent of the Earth they were looking for. Alas, the “Sandwich Land”, thanks to the efforts of F. Bellingshausen and M. Lazarev in 1820, turned into the South Sandwich Islands, and the “White Land” of Vedidea already in the 19th century became the White Continent called “Antarctica”. Even in the archipelago of Franz Josef Land, the Vedidean name “White Land” appeared. It’s not for nothing that the Bible says: “It is hidden from the wise and revealed to babes.”

I involuntarily remembered the unlucky Cook, the wise Forsters and the young Vedidea on September 14, 1997 on the South Island in the Barents Sea, where in the Lazarev Mountains I discovered a lake not shown on any topographic map. The area of ​​the glacial lake at that time was about 350 square meters, and the depth was more than 30 meters.

It was formed on the site of the Vasnetsov glacier, which has retreated almost 700 meters over the past 45 years, or more precisely, its southwestern tongue, which descended in the early 50s to 300 meters above the level of the Barents Sea. The lake had an unusual dark green color. But in the Lazarev Mountains I was interested not so much in the new glacial lake as in the Vasnetsov Glacier, which is degrading due to climate warming. In some places, light blue glacier ice, crumpled into bizarre folds, was exposed from under the firn.

It is a pity that such folds were not seen by Cook, father and son Forster. At the beginning of the 20th century, folding in one of the ice shelves in the Adelie Land region was noted by the Australian geologist Douglas Mawson. Folds of the most varied shapes are also found in glacier ice, sometimes stuffed with fragments of rocky, semi-rocky and loose rocks, as well as air bubbles from past eras. But not a single naturalist, geographer or geologist has yet recorded folds in ice of sea, lake or river origin.

Looking at the folded “white land” of the Vasnetsov glacier and its brainchild, the new Emerald Lake, it was not difficult for me to give an interpretation of the term “land”. For me, as for young Vedideya, land is a section of the earth’s surface that is not flooded with the waters of seas, oceans, lakes, rivers and swamps, as well as their ice during the cold season. And I fully share the point of view of the young Polynesian that glaciers are white land composed of ice from blowing snow, snowfields and glaciers.

For Russian hydrogeologist Nestor Tolstikhin, all this ice is not only “the solid phase of water,” but also “icey rocks.” So Vedidei and N. Tolstikhin perceived glacier ice as a rock that makes up the land, although the Bolabol student never went to school, and Nestor Ivanovich was a doctor of geological and mineralogical sciences and knew a lot about rocks...