RELICS OF CAPTAIN COOK.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XVIII, Issue 1174, 26 August 1885, Page 4

RELICS OF CAPTAIN COOK.

Sir Saul Samuel has been fortunate enough to secure for the 3New South Wales Government two interesting relics of the great navigator who, in 1770, discovered and took possession of Australia for the British Empire. One of these relicts is believed to be the ship's compass, with which the Endeavor was navigated on her eventful voyage, and the other a grog bottle, designed by Captain Cook, and which he took with him when he circumnavigated the world. The evidence of identification is fairly satisfactory, and is as follows : — The articles in question came into the possession of Sir Joseph Banks, who, it will be remembered, was naturalist to Captain Cook's expedition. They passed to Mr Robert Brown, D.C.L, F. R. S . , President of the Linn scan Society, who was living with Sir Joseph Banks as his private Secretary when Captain Cook started in 1768 to observe the transit of Venus in the Pacific. At the death of Mr Brown, his trustee and executor received the compass. His widow intended to present the instrument to the museum at Whitby (Captain Cook's native place), but for various reasons this was not done, and the article waa eventually sold, and passed into the possession of Mr Thomas Toon, a collector of scientific instruments resident in London, who has sold it to Sir Saul Samuel for £40. Mr Toon appears to have acquired the grog bottle — a curions looking flask cased with iron — from Mr John Calvert, who states that Sir Joseph Banks stored in his house in Soho Square a number of relics relating to Captain Cook and others, collected during his travels. When he died the articles came into Dr Brown's possession, he being at the time a tenant of Mr Calvert. Mr Bennet handed over the Cook relic to Mr Calvert (excepting a ship's compass, which he had removed to his own house), in lieu of certain claims against Dr Brown's estate. Among these curiosities was the grog flask, which Mr Calvert states had stood for half a century in Sir Joseph Banks' old house in Soho Square, with a piece of paper in it containing the following endorsement in Sir J. Banks' handwriting : " This was Captain Cook's own invention, made for him to go abroad. He evidently prepared himself for very rough handling." The Admiralty cannot supply the names of the makers of the two compasses which Captain Cook took with him when he sailed from Deptford, on 30th June, 1768.