18 May 1770

Joseph Banks's Journal: Daily Entries

Table of Contents On this day ... 18 May 1770 Endeavour Voyage Maps James Cook's Journal Ms 1, National Library of Australia Transcript of Cook's Journal Sydney Parkinson's Journal The authorised published account of Cook's Voyage by John Hawkesworth 1770 Index Search Contact us Search for in Falconer's Dictionary of the Marine

18 May 1770 18. Land this morn very sandy. We could see through our glasses that the sands which lay in great patches of many acres each were moveable: some of them had been lately movd, for trees which stood up in the middle of them were quite green, others of a longer standing had many stumps sticking out of them which had been trees killd by the sand heaping about their roots. Few fires were seen. Two water snakes swam by the ship; they were in all respects like land snakes and beautifully spotted except that they had broad flat tails which probably serve them instead of fins in swimming. In the evening I went out in the small boat but saw few birds of three sorts, Men of War birds (Pelecanus aquilus) Bobies (Pelicanus Sula) and Nectris munda, of which last shot one, and took up 2 cuttle bones differing from the European ones in nothing but the having a small sharp peg or prickle at one end. Voyaging Accounts © Derived from State Library of NSW 1998 Transcription of Banks's Endeavour Journal page (vol.2) 265, 2004 Published by kind permission of the Library https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/banks/17700518.html