During the last few years there has been a very noticeable increase in the number of expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic; and a consequent quickening of interest in polar exploration among those who are unable, through circumstance, to take any active part in the work. For this reason polar societies and clubs have come into being, in different countries, the membership of some of them confined strictly to explorers, while others welcome anybody interested in the subject.

The Discovery II left St Katharine Dock on October 7, 1937. She will be away for twenty months continuing her research on the distribution of whales, hydrology and plankton.

The first seven months (the southern summer) are to provide data for comparison with those obtained on the winter circumpolax cruise of 1932 and with those of the survey of the southern part of the Pacific Ocean in 1934. The work was to have been done in 1935-36, but it was not completed as it was necessary to revise the programme after a voyage had been made to the Ross Barrier to pick up the American airman, Mr Lincoln Ellsworth.

The publication of a Report on the Progress of the Discovery Committee's Investigations (Discovery Committee, Colonial Office, June 1937) provides a suitable occasion to review briefly the achievements of the last twelve years.

It is pleasant to be able to record that the printing of the results of the Australasian Antarctic expedition of 1911–14 has been resumed. It will be remembered that the publication of these reports was greatly interfered with by the Great War. During the post-war years the reports were slowly issued from the Government Printing Office, Sydney; but, in 1930, in the absence of financial provision for continuing the work, the printing of the manuscripts was suspended. A resumption of the printing of these reports has now become possible through the good offices of the Minister of Education, Mr D. H. Drumond, largely owing to generous assistance from the Commonwealth Government.

In most of the years subsequent to the undue expansion of the season 1930–81, mutual agreements were reached between the whaling companies of most of the nations interested in whaling, whereby production was restricted. Owing partly to novel factors, including the increased number of nations participating in the industry, labour friction, and, most fundamental, the rapid rise in the price of whale oil, the achievement of any such arrangement for the season 1936–37 proved unusually difficult. The British and Norwegian Governments, accordingly, arrived at regulations binding on the nationals of each. These regulations curtailed Antarctic pelagic whaling to three months' duration commencing December 1; and in the course of discussion the factory ships to be employed were designated by name, and stations which should operate, and prescribed the number of catchers each might employ, and factory ships (with a few insignificant exceptions) working in the Antarctic were prohibited from operating also between the Equator and Lat. 40° S. These regulations did not affect Japanese or German whaling. The fleet, notwithstanding the limitations, was larger than in any other year since 1930. It included the powerful new factory, Terje Viken, under the British flag, equipped entirely with mechanical boilers; two Japanese and one German factory, and totalled in all thirty ships, served by 173 catchers; but for the regulations many more catchers would have been employed. It is noteworthy that for the first time since the revival of Southern whaling, of the men employed, some 700 were of British nationality. The production of oil was over 2,600,000 barrels or 430,000 tons.

The idea of forming the Association for the Study of Snow and Ice developed from the desire of the British members of the International Commissions of Snow and of Glaciers respectively to establish in this country a permanent body to encourage research on the practical and scientific problems of snow and ice, and generally to stimulate interest in the subject.