[Footnote 51:  Messrs Hodges and Webber, whose drawings have ornamented and illustrated this and Captain Cook’s second voyage.—­D.]

[Footnote 52:  Mr Green, in the Endeavour; Messrs Wales and Bayly, in the Resolution and the Adventure; Mr Bayly, a second time, jointly with Captains Cook and King in this voyage; and Mr Lyons, who accompanied Lord Mulgrave.—­D.]

What real acquisitions have been gained by this munificent attention to science, cannot be better expressed than in the words of Mr Wales, who engaged in one of these voyages himself, and contributed largely to the benefits derived from them.

“That branch of natural knowledge which may be called nautical astronomy, was undoubtedly in its infancy when these voyages were first undertaken.  Both instruments and observers, which deserved the name, were very rare; and so late as the year 1770, it was thought necessary, in the appendix to Mayor’s Tables, published by the Board of Longitude, to state facts, in contradiction to the assertions of so celebrated an astronomer as the Abbe de la Caille, that the altitude of the sun at noon, the easiest and most simple of all observations, could not be taken with certainty to a less quantity than five, six, seven, or even eight minutes.[53] But those who will give themselves the trouble to look into the astronomical observations, made in Captain Cook’s last voyage, will find, that there were few, even of the petty officers, who could not observe the distance of the moon from the sun, or a star, the most delicate of all observations, with sufficient accuracy.  It may be added, that the method of making and computing observations for finding the variation of the compass, is better known, and more frequently practised, by those who have been on these voyages, than by most others.  Nor is there, perhaps, a person who ranks as an officer, and has been concerned in them, who would not, whatever his real skill may be, feel ashamed to have it thought that he did not know how to observe for, and compute the time at sea; though, but a short while before these voyages were set on foot, such a thing was scarcely ever heard of amongst seamen; and even first-rate astronomers doubted the possibility of doing it with sufficient exactness.[54]

[Footnote 53:  The Abbe’s words are,—­“Si ceux qui promettent une si grande precision dans ces sortes de methodes, avoient navigue quelques temps, ils auroient vu souvent, que dans l’observation la plus simple de toutes, qui est celle de la hauteur du soleil a midi, deux observations, munis de bons quartiers de reflexion, bien rectifies, different entr’eux, lorsqu’ils observent chacun a part, de 5’, 6’, 7’, & 8’.”—­Ephemer. 1755—­1765. Introduction, p. 32.