Cook, Thomas, 1808-92, English travel agent. In Leicester in 1841 he founded the travel agency that bears his name. The idea of the guided tour met with quick success, and by 1852 Cook had moved his office to London. Shortly thereafter he set up (1856) his Circular Tour of Europe, and 10 years later he was arranging tours of the United States. His most spectacular achievement was the transportation of an entire expeditionary force (18,000 men) up the Nile for the attempted relief of Gen. Charles George Gordon in 1884.

Cook, Sir Joseph, 1860-1947, Australian statesman, b. England. A leader of the Free Trade party, he served as prime minister (1913-14) and later as minister of the navy (1917-21) and high commissioner to London (1921-27). He was Australian representative at the Paris Peace Conference and a delegate (1922-26) to the League of Nations.

Cook, Mount, New Zealand: see Aorangi, Mount.

Cook, James, 1728-79, English explorer and navigator. The son of a Yorkshire agricultural laborer, he had little formal education. After an apprenticeship to a firm of shipowners at Whitby, he joined (1755) the royal navy and surveyed the St. Lawrence Channel (1760) and the coasts of Newfoundland and Labrador (1763-67). Cook was then given command of the Endeavour and sailed (1768) on an expedition to chart the transit of Venus; he returned to England in 1771, having also circumnavigated the globe and explored the coasts of New Zealand, which he accurately charted for the first time, and E Australia.

Cook next commanded (1772-75) an expedition to the South Pacific of two ships, the Resolution and the Adventure. On this voyage he disproved the rumor of a great southern continent, explored the Antarctic Ocean and the New Hebrides, visited New Caledonia, and by the observance of strict diet and hygiene prevented scurvy, heretofore the scourge of long voyages. Cook sailed again in 1776; in 1778 he visited and named the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) and unsuccessfully searched the coast of NW North America for a Northwest Passage. On the return voyage he was killed by natives on the island of Hawaii. During the course of his journeys Cook visited about ten major Pacific island groups and more than 40 individual islands, also making first European contact with a wide variety of indigenous peoples.

Cook, George Cram: see Glaspell, Susan.

Cook, Frederick Albert, 1865-1940, American explorer and physician, b. Sullivan co., N.Y. Cook early became interested in the arctic and accompanied the expedition of Robert E. Peary in 1891-92 as surgeon. Later he accompanied the Belgian expedition (1897-99) to Antarctica and made other polar voyages. In 1906, after unsuccessful attempts to reach the summit of Mt. McKinley, Cook remained behind when most of the party returned. He later announced that he and a companion had successfully scaled the peak; this assertion was afterward proved to be fraudulent. In 1907 he set out with an expedition for the arctic, and on Sept. 1, 1909, he emerged into civilization again, claiming that he had reached the North Pole in Apr., 1908. A few days later Peary announced that he had reached the pole in Apr., 1909, and accused Cook of fraud. The argument was sensational. Cook was deprived of some of the honors that had been accorded him and disappeared from the public eye for a time. Later he was involved in an oil-field promotion scheme in Texas and served five years (1925-30) of a 14-year sentence for having used the mails to defraud. To the end of his life, however, and in the face of a generally hostile public, Cook fought for vindication of his polar and Mt. McKinley claims and even filed several libel suits. He was supported by some well-known explorers as well as some ardent admirers. Cook defended his claims in My Attainment of the Pole (1911) and Return from the Pole (ed. by F. J. Pohl, 1951).

Cook, Ebenezer, fl. 1708, American author. Virtually nothing is known about his life. He is the author of The Sot-Weed Factor (1708), a satirical poem concerning an Englishman's visit to Maryland. Sotweed Redivivus (1730), a treatise on tobacco production, is also attributed to him. Cook is the central character in The Sot-Weed Factor (1960), a novel by John Barth.

Cook, David J., 1840-1907, American law enforcement officer, b. near La Porte, Ind. He moved (1855) with his family to Kansas, went (1859) to the Colorado gold fields, and returned to enlist (1861) in the Union army in the Civil War. Army service as a sort of military policeman led him to found the volunteer Rocky Mountain Detective Association to suppress outlawry in Colorado, and he had a long career as marshal, sheriff, and police chief, mostly around Denver. He brought many train, bank, and express-company robbers to justice, helped to quell the Ute revolt of 1878, and was arbitrator in the mine strike at Leadville in 1880.

Cook Strait, channel, c.15 mi (24 km) wide, between the North Island and the South Island, New Zealand. It was first explored in 1770 by Capt. James Cook.

Cook Islands, island group (2006 pop. 19,569), 90 sq mi (234 sq km), S Pacific, SE of Samoa; a self-governing state in free association with New Zealand. It consists of 15 small islands and is comprised of two main groups, the Southern (or Lower) Cook islands (Rarotonga, Mangaia, Atiu, Aitutaki, Mauke, Mitiaro, and Manuae and Te-Au-o-tu) and the Northern Cook islands (Nassau, Palmerston, Penrhyn, Manihiki, Rakahanga, Pukapuka, and Suwarrow). The islands were formerly called the Hervey Islands. Avarua, on Rarotonga, is the capital and administrative center of the group. The Cook Islanders are Maoris, a Polynesian people, and are largely Christians. English is the official language and Maori is also spoken.

Economy

Agriculture employs about one third of the people. Fruits and vegetables are grown, and pigs and poultry are raised. Food processing, tourism, and fishing are the major industries. Black pearls, copra, papayas, citrus fruits and juices, coffee, fish, clothing, and handicrafts are the principal exports. Foodstuffs, textiles, fuels, timber, and capital goods are imported. Beginning in the 1980s the islands also became a popular tax haven and offshore banking center, but in 2003 the government moved to increase regulation of offshore banks as a result of international pressure. Large numbers of workers emigrate to New Zealand and their remittances are also an important source of income. Government spending is important to the economy, and more than 60% of the labor force work in the public sector. The Maoris generally work their own land.

Government

The Cook Islands are governed under the constitution of 1965. The monarch of Great Britain and Northern Island is the head of state and appoints a British representative. The prime minister heads the government. There is a bicameral parliament. Members of the 25-seat Legislative Assembly are elected by popular vote for five-year terms. The 15-member House of Ariki (hereditary chiefs) is a purely consultative body that advises on traditional matters. New Zealand, represented by a high commissioner, is responsible for foreign affairs and defense in consultation with the Cook Islands government.

History

The southern islands were probably occupied by the Polynesians c.1,500 years ago. Spaniards visited the islands in the late 16th and early 17th cent. Capt. James Cook sighted some of the islands in 1773; others were not discovered until the 1820s. The London Missionary Society was a powerful influence in the southern islands during the 19th cent. The islands were proclaimed a British protectorate in 1888 and were annexed by New Zealand in 1901. The Cook Islands achieved internal self-government in 1965 and are free to unilaterally declare their complete independence. An economic crisis in the mid-1990s led to outmigration and a significant drop in the islands population.

Carter, Elliott Cook, Jr., 1908-, American composer, b. New York City. Carter is considered by many to be the most important contemporary American composer. He studied with Walter Piston, E. B. Hill, and Gustav Holst at Harvard and with Nadia Boulanger in Paris (1932-35). Carter's complex mature music is organized into highly intellectualized contrapuntal patterns to which sympathetic listeners attribute great emotional power. He characteristically uses tempo as an element of form, notably in his technique of "metric modulation," his most famous musical innovation. Highlights from an unusually long and prolific musical career include the ballet Pocahontas (1939), a cello and piano sonata (1948), five string quartets (1951, 1958-59, 1973, 1986, 1995), Variations (1953-55) for orchestra, a piano concerto (1966), a concerto for orchestra (1969), A Mirror on Which to Dwell (1976) for soprano and nine players to poems by Elizabeth Bishop, Night Fantasies (1980) for piano, Changes (1983) for guitar, Adagio Tenebroso (1995) for orchestra, the opera What's Next? (1999), and a cello concerto (2001) composed for Yo-Yo Ma.

(born Nov. 22, 1808, Melbourne, Derbyshire, Eng.—died July 18, 1892, Leicester, Leicestershire) British innovator of the conducted tour. A Baptist missionary, in 1841 he arranged for a special train to be run to a temperance meeting; this was probably the first publicly advertised excursion train in England. He began to arrange excursions on a regular basis, and in 1856 he led his first grand tour of Europe. In the early 1860s he became an agent for the sale of travel tickets; with his son, John Mason Cook (1834–99), he founded the Thomas Cook & Son travel agency. In the 1880s the firm also organized military transport and postal services.

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known as Captain Cook

(born Oct. 27, 1728, Marton-in-Cleveland, Yorkshire, Eng.—died Feb. 14, 1779, Kealakekua Bay, Hawaii) British sailor and explorer. He joined the Royal Navy (1755) and in 1763–67 surveyed the St. Lawrence River and the coast of Newfoundland. In 1768 he was appointed commander of the first scientific expedition to the Pacific. Sailing on the HMS Endeavour, he found and charted all of New Zealand and explored the eastern coast of Australia. That voyage (1768–71) produced a wealth of scientifically collected material and was also notable for Cook's successful prevention of scurvy among crew members. Promoted to commander, he was sent with two ships to make the first circumnavigation and penetration into the Antarctic. On that expedition (1772–75), which ranks as one of the greatest of all sailing-ship voyages, he successfully completed the first west-east circumnavigation in high latitudes. On a third voyage (1776–79) in search of a Northwest Passage around Canada and Alaska, he was killed by Polynesian natives on Hawaii.

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Strait, separating North and South islands of New Zealand. Extending from the Tasman Sea to the Pacific Ocean, it is about 14 mi (23 km) wide at its narrowest point and averages 420 ft (128 m) in depth. Both shores are lined with steep cliffs, and that of South Island is deeply embayed. Treacherous currents and fierce storms present serious hazards to navigation. Capt. James Cook explored the strait in 1770.

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Island group (pop., 2005 est.: 13,900), southern Pacific Ocean. Located roughly 2,000 mi (3,000 km) northeast of New Zealand, the 15 islands, scattered from north to south over some 900 mi (1,450 km) of ocean, are divided into a southern group of nine islands, including Raratonga (the seat of government), and a northern group of six. All in the northern group are true atolls; most in the southern group have volcanic interiors. They were probably settled by Polynesians from Tonga and Samoa; there is evidence of a highly organized society circa AD 1100. Capt. James Cook explored many of them during the 1770s. Established as a British protectorate in 1888, they were annexed by New Zealand in 1901. Self-government in free association with New Zealand was achieved in 1965.

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(born Dec. 13, 1890, McKeesport, Pa., U.S.—died Dec. 21, 1980, New York, N.Y.) U.S. playwright, screenwriter, and director. He covered theatrical news as a journalist in Pittsburgh and New York City. He collaborated with George S. Kaufman on the play Dulcy (1921), which they followed with the comedies To the Ladies (1922) and Beggar on Horseback (1924) and the librettos for the musicals Helen of Troy, New York (1923) and Be Yourself (1924). Connelly went on to write Green Pastures (1930, Pulitzer Prize; film, 1936), his best-known work, and The Farmer Takes a Wife (1934; film, 1935).

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