page_title: Second voyage of James Cook
section_title: Conception
hierarchical_section_title: Second voyage of James Cook / Conception
context_page_description: The second voyage of James Cook, from 1772 to 1775, commissioned by the British government with advice from the Royal Society, was designed to circumnavigate the globe as far south as possible to finally determine whether there was any great southern landmass, or Terra Australis. On his first voyage, Cook had demonstrated by circumnavigating New Zealand that it was not attached to a larger landmass to the south, and he charted almost the entire eastern coastline of Australia, yet Terra Australis was believed to lie further south. Alexander Dalrymple and others of the Royal Society still believed that this massive southern continent should exist. After a delay brought about by the botanist Joseph Banks' unreasonable demands, the ships Resolution and Adventure were fitted for the voyage and set sail for the Antarctic in July 1772.
  On 17 January 1773, Resolution was the first ship to venture south of the Antarctic Circle, which she did twice more on this voyage. The final such crossing, on 3 February 1774, was to be the most southerly penetration, reaching latitude 71°10′ South at longitude 106°54′ West.
context_section_description: In 1752, a member of the Royal Society of London, Alexander Dalrymple, had found Luis Váez de Torres' testimony proving the existence of a passage south of New Guinea now known as Torres Strait, whilst translating some Spanish documents captured in the Philippines. This discovery led Dalrymple to publish  An Historical Collection of the Several Voyages and Discoveries in the South Pacific Ocean. in 1770–1771 which aroused widespread interest in his claim of the existence of an unknown continent. Soon after his return from his first voyage in 1771, Commander Cook was commissioned by the Royal Society to make a second voyage in search of the supposed southern continent, Terra Australis Incognita.
caption: Map of the supposed position of the hypothetical continent of Terra Australis Incognita (1657) by Jan Janssonius.
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