COOK AND HAWAII.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19833, 31 December 1927, Page 10

COOK AND HAWAII.

A NOTABLE ANNIVERSARY, CELEBRATIONS ARRANGED, Two important anniversaries connected with Captain, Cook will occur in 1928. The bicentenary of his birth falls on October 28,. and January 20 marks the .150 th an? niversary of his discovery of the Hawaiian Islands in 1778. : \ The latter event will be observed by $ round of ceremonies and gatherings at Honolulu and elsewhere in the group. Thg administration has appropriated £SOOQ for the purpose, and a 6ommemorative series of postage stamps is to be issued. It has been suggested that New Zea* land, which owes so much to the great" navigator, should be officially represented at the celebrations. So far the Govern* ment has said nothing about the matte*,, but it is possible that. Professor J. B„ CondlifEe, director of research for the In* stitute of Pacific Relations, and formerly of Canterbury College, will be a silted to act. Strictly speaking, Cook was not the original discoverer of th© Hawaiian group. There is some for thinking that these were the islands upon which two of the vessels of Alvaro de Stiavedra, a Spaniard, were wrecked ,in 152'8, and that they were visited two' decad«s later by Juan Gaetan. The ra-' cords, however, are imperfect. Cook encountered the group upon his third and last voyage, little knowing that upon thcf island of Hawaii itself he was to meet his end. He was on his way northward from Tahiti, bound for the Behring Sea, in an unsuccessful attempt to discover the North-we.st Passage. His stay was for a bam fortnight, but at the end of November following he retusned and continued his explorations and surveys. On February' 14, 1779, t he was killed in an affray upon the beach of Kealakekua Bay, on the island of Hawaii. The spot where he fell is now marked with a monument. •