The earlier explores provided mapmakers with an understanding of the major continents. Part two of this series highlights the voyages of British Explorer James Cook and French explorer Jean Francois de la Perouse. James Cook, an exceptional navigator and cartographer, circumnavigated New Zealand, explored the Great Barrier Reef of Australia, and crossed the Polar Circle being the first to understand the icy nature of Antarctica. He sailed across the Pacific Ocean, mapping the "Sandwich" or Hawaiian Islands, and visited most of Polynesia. The voyages of LaPerouse in the Pacific provided cartographers with detailed charts and illustrations of the shores of Alaska, the Sea of Japan and the island archipelagos of Micronesia and Polynesia. A member of his expedition, Barthelemy de Lesseps, traveled by land across Siberia and Russia to deliver these documents back to Europe.