294 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.

man, hot for adventure, but he was really a student and a man of
science. Consequently, when the Royal Society wished to obtain
observations on the passage of the planet Venus across the face of
the sun, Cook was picked out as the man to command a vessel that
would go to the Pacific ocean and visit parts favorable to an observation
‘of the sun. He sailed from Plymouth, England, in 1768. He ac-
quitted himself with great credit in that voyage. About this time
men were talking over the point, is there not some great southern
continent ? I suppose they thought the world might lose its balance
if there were not. something away down here at the south to balance
the heavy lands at the north.

“ After Capt. Cook and his companions had looked at the sun
all they cared to, they continued their voyage and came down here
to find a southern continent. Then it was that Capt. Cock visited
New Zealand, that had not had a visit from a European for over
a hundred years. He saw first this strait we are now sailing through.
He did not receive a very cordial welcome from the natives of New
Zealand, and it fearfully astonished them when one of their number
dropped dead at the firmg of a musket by an officer of Capt. Cook.
Fire-arms puzzled them.

“Capt. Cook visited Australia in 1770, examined a long piece
of its coast, and claimed it for Great Britain. He sailed on, meeting
with various adventures, reaching England once more. ‘The keel
of his ship had made a furrow of foam all round the world, but it
took three years to do it. Yet people were not satisfied; and to
learn finally if there might be a southern continent, Capt. Cook was
sent once more, when forty-four years old, to circumnavigate the
globe and find the southern continent. He made new discoveries, and
his two ships sailed over sixty thousand miles; but they did not find
the big southern land that was anticipated. In all that long voyage,