Description
Dutch edition of Cook’s famous chart of the ‘Labyrinth’ where the Endeavour hit a reef while sailing through the Great Barrier Reef and luckily was able to be taken to shore and careened for repairs. It was here near present day Cooktown that Bank’s the botanist and crew captured the first kangaroo.The first detailed map of the Australian east coast from the official accounts of Cook’s first voyage. The Endeavour a converted collier, chosen by the Cook for its suitability for coastal navigation because of it’s flat-bottomed design. This allowed sailing in shallow waters and for it to be beached for loading and unloading. Cooks own account of the Endeavour striking the reef June 1770 “before ten, we had twenty and one twenty fathom, and this depth continuing, the gentlemen left the deck in great tranquillity, and went to bed but a few minutes before eleven, the water fhallowed at once from twenty to feventeen fathom, and before the lead could be caft again, the fhip ftruck, and remained immoveable”
References BOCC 650 EOA Pg 38-50 ill pg 47
