Pacific Images: Views from Captain Cook's Third Voyage

by James Cook

Pacific Images, in this, its second edition, presents the earliest illustrations and descriptions of Pacific peoples and cultures as they were observed and recorded on Captain James Cook's third and final voyage (1776-1780) with HMS Resolution and Discovery. Reproduced are all sixty-one engraved plates from artist John Webber's drawings, plus three maps published in the rare folio Atlas that accompanies the British governments's official journal, A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean (1784). The engraving of Cook's death, added to the 1785 reprint of the Atlas, is also inserted. Text describing each illustration is derived from the meticulous notebooks and detailed journals kept by Cook and his officers.

174 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1999

About the author

British navigator James Cook, known as Captain Cook, commanded three major exploratory voyages to chart and to name many islands of the Pacific Ocean and also sailed along the coast of North America as far as the Bering Strait.

During circumnavigation of the globe from 1768 to 1771 with James Cook, Joseph Banks collected and cataloged numerous specimens of plants and animals.

James Cook, captain, visited Austral Islands in 1769 and 1777.

James Cook, fellow of the royal society, served as a cartographer in the Navy. Cook made detailed maps of Newfoundland prior to making, and achieving the first recorded European contact with the eastern line of Australia and Hawaii and the record around New Zealand.

Cook joined the merchant as a teenager and joined the royal Navy in 1755. He saw action in the Seven Years' War and subsequently surveyed and mapped much of the entrance to the Saint Lawrence River during the siege of Quebec. This mapping helped to bring Cook to the attention of the admiralty and royal society. This notice came at a crucial moment in career of Cook and in the overseas direction and led to his first commission in 1766 of His Majesty's bark Endeavour.

Cook went thousands of miles across large areas of the globe. From New Zealand, he mapped to Hawaii in greater detail and on a not previously achieved scale. He progressed on his discovery, surveyed features, and recorded lines on European maps for the first time. He displayed a combination of seamanship, superior surveying and cartographic skills, physical courage, and an ability to lead men in adverse conditions.

A fight with Hawaiians killed Cook. He left a scientific and geographical legacy to influence his successors well into the 20th century, and people dedicated numerous memorials worldwide.