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 voyages of Captain Cook have ascertained this matter as much as it probably ever will be. (See SOUTH SEA; COOK'S DISCOVERIES, No. 47, 48, 68, 69; and AMERICA, No. 4.) 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 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 engrossed 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 excellent cold, the many islands, and vast floes 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 farther to the north, opposite to the northern 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."