might extend to the Pole, or join some land to which it had been fixed from the earliest time. Returning northwards, during the winter months he traversed nearly the whole extent of the Pacific Ocean between the tropics, visiting Easter Island, the Marquesas, the Society and Friendly Islands, the New Hebrides, and another island, the largest yet discovered in the Pacific, except those of New Zealand, which he called New Caledonia. He then returned to New Zealand, and having passed three weeks in friendly intercourse with the natives, took his departure, November 10. Having cruised in various latitudes between 43° and 56°, a portion of the ocean which he had not yet explored, and being in W. long. 138° 56´, he determined to steer direct for the western entrance of the Straits of Magellan, and thence, along Tierra del Fuego, to the Straits of Le Maire. December 29 he passed Cape Horn, and re-entered the Atlantic Ocean, and standing southward, discovered Sandwich Land, a desolate coast, the extreme point of which he named the Southern Thule, lat. 59° 13´, as the most southern land that had then been discovered. Later navigators have found land nearer to the Pole. “I concluded,” Captain Cook observes, “that Sandwich Land was either a group of islands, or else a point of the continent, for I firmly believe that there is a tract of land near the Pole, which is the source of most of the ice which is spread over this vast southern ocean. I also think it probable that it extends farthest to the north, opposite the Southern Atlantic and Indian Oceans, because ice was always found by us farther to the north in these oceans than any where else.” Having now encompassed the globe in a high latitude, and thinking it impossible to prosecute further researches in those tempestuous seas with a worn-out ship, and nearly exhausted provisions, Cook made sail for the Cape; and arrived there March 22, 1774, having sailed 20,000 leagues since he had left it, without so much injury to the ship as springing a mast or yard. July 30 he anchored at Spithead.