On the 12th of December, Captain Cook entered the loose and floating ice,
in latitude 62 deg. 10'; on the 21st he met with icebergs in latitude 67 deg.; and
by the end of the month he returned to latitude 58 deg.. On the 26th of January
in the following year, he again penetrated within the Antarctic circle, and
on the 30th, had got as far as latitude 71 deg. 16'. This was the utmost point
to which he was able to penetrate; and he was so fully persuaded, not only
of the impracticability of being able to sail further to the south, but
also of remaining in that latitude, that he returned to the northward the
very same day, deeming it, as he expresses it, a dangerous and rash
enterprize to struggle with fields of ice. "I," he continues, "who had
ambition not only to go farther than any one before, but as far as it was
possible for man to go, was not sorry to meet with this interruption." The
existence of a southern continent was thus considered by Captain Cook, and
all other geographers, as disproved to an almost absolute certainty.
In this voyage Captain Cook also obtained a correct knowledge of the land
discovered by La Roche in 1675, and gave to it the name of New Georgia; he
discovered, too, Sandwich land, which was then supposed to be the nearest
land to the South Pole; he ascertained the extent of the Archipelago, of
the New Hebrides, which had been originally seen by Quiros, and
superficially examined by Bougainville.
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