Science had been making progress, and the desire really to know, and no longer to guess at, the extent and nature of the world, perceptibly increased. Scientists, engaged solely on scientific work, accompanied both the expeditions of Marion and Kerguelen, and when Captain James Cook sailed in 1772 from Deptford, on what was the first British Antarctic expedition, he was also accompanied by scientists. The name of James Cook will always be given a place of honour among explorers, for, quite apart from the discoveries that he made, he set an example of courage in facing dangers and difficulties that can never be forgotten. He and all the earlier navigators, we must remember, had to undertake their voyages in ships that were totally unfit to encounter ice. And when this fact is realized, we are compelled to admire the pertinacity with which they carried out their work, and to recognize that the results of their efforts were, under the circumstances, magnificent. It has been well said that James Cook defined the Antarctic region and that James Ross discovered it; and, indeed, it would be difficult to overestimate the importance either of Cook's voyages or of those subsequently undertaken by Ross. January 17, 1773, was a red-letter day in the annals of exploration, for during its forenoon Cook crossed the Antarctic Circle for the first time. Icebergs and loose pack-ice were then surrounding him, but he pushed on until he sighted closely packed ice. In his opinion he might possibly have pushed his way through this ice, but in such a ship as the _Resolution_ (462 tons) he did not consider himself justified in making so dangerous an experiment. The latitude that he reached was 71° 10' S., longitude 106° 54' W. Cook's expedition returned to Portsmouth in July, 1775, and then the value of his voyage was recognized. He had made the circuit of the Southern ocean in a high latitude, and had for ever crushed the idea of a fertile and fruitful Southern continent. If land lay beyond the Antarctic Circle, Cook thought that it must consist of "countries condemned to everlasting rigidity by Nature, never to yield to the warmth of the sun, for whose wild and desolate aspect I find no words." Cook, in short, had revealed the limits of the habitable globe, and his accounts of what he had encountered in the Far South did not encourage men, who were anxious to find land in which fortunes could quickly be made, to think longingly of the Antarctic. After Cook's return no serious attempt at geographical discoveries in the South was made until the Russian Government, in 1819, sent an expedition, under Captain Bellingshausen, to the Southern seas. Bellingshausen's ambition was to rival Cook's feat of making the circuit of the Southern ocean in high latitude, and he achieved it. He was also the first explorer definitely to discover land within the Antarctic Circle.