TERRA AUSTRALIS INCOGNITA, a name for a large unknown continent, supposed to lie towards the South Pole, and which for a long time was sought after by navigators. The late voyages of Captain Cook have ascertained this matter as much as it probably ever will be; and though this celebrated navigator does not deny the existence of such a climate, it is by no means probable that ever it will become inhabited, or that any valuable commodity can be produced from it. On this subject Captain Cook expresses himself as follows. "I had now made the circuit of the Southern Ocean in a high latitude, and traversed it in such a manner as to leave not the least room for the possibility of there being a continent, unless near the pole, and out of the reach of navigation. By twice visiting the tropical sea, I had not only settled the situation of some old discoveries, but made there many new ones, and left, I conceive, very little more to be done even in that
† See
Terminus.
Terra. that part. Thus I flatter myself, that the intention of the voyage has in every respect been fully answered; the southern hemisphere sufficiently explored; and a final end put to the searching after a southern continent, which has at times ingrossed the attention of some of the maritime powers for near two centuries past, and been a favourite theory amongst the geographers of all ages. That there may be a continent, or large tract of land near the pole, I will not deny: on the contrary, I am of opinion there is; and it is probable that we have seen a part of it. The excessive cold, the many islands and vast floats of ice, all tend to prove that there must be land to the south; and for my persuasion that this southern land must lie or extend farthest to the north, opposite to the Southern Atlantic and Indian Oceans, I have already assigned some reasons; to which I may add the greater degree of cold experienced by us in these seas than in the Southern Pacific Ocean under the same parallels of latitude."
TERRA del Fuego. See TIERRA del Fuego.