A Voyage Round the World with Captain James Cook in HMS RESOLUTION

Maker Anders Sparrman

Date1944

Object number00006227

NameBook

MediumPaper, cloth covered boards.

DimensionsOverall: 30 x 321 x 205 mm, 1.1 kg

ClassificationsBooks and journals

Credit LineANMM Collection

Terms

DescriptionA book by Anders Sparrman titled 'A Voyage round the world with Captain James Cook in HMS RESOLUTION introduction & notes by Owen Rutter wood-engravings by Peter Barker-Mill' published by The Golden Cockerel Press, Great Britiain, 1944. Sparrman joined Cook's third voyage from South Africa as an assistant naturalist to Johan Georg Adam Forster aboard the RESOLUTION. HistoryAnders Sparrman (1748-1820) was a Swedish naturalist, physician, traveller and disciple of Linnaeus. In 1765 he went on a voyage to China and in 1772 to the Cape of Good Hope, where he served as a tutor. He became acquainted with Johann Reinhold Forster and his son Johan Georg Adam Forster when Cook's third expedition stopped at the Cape in October, 1772. They requesyted he accpompany them on vboard the RESOLUTION as their assistant, to whicjh he readily agreed and thus emabrked on what he described as "the most fortunate voyage that history can ever relate." Throughout the journey Sparrman kept a journal and collected many natural and ethnographic specimans. Whilst initially it seems language was a barrier, he must of overcome this as he notes he "would have preferred to hear a fewer "Goddamns" from the Captain, remarking that the results could have been achieved with fewer oaths". After his return to Sweden in 1776 he was appointed keeper of the natural historical collections of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1780. In 1787 he participated in an expedition to West Africa. Practicing physician in Stockholm. Author of several works, the best known of which is his account of his travels in South Africa and with Cook.SignificanceSparrman provides another perspective on Cook's third voyage and in his interest in oceanography - particularly using sea water for cooking and treating on board ailments, shows the state of oceanography in the late 18th Century.