During the last ten years there has been great activity in the sector of the Antarctic which lies south of the Indian Ocean. The work of various expeditions has sometimes been simultaneous, and owing to the fact that the areas visited have overlapped, more than one set of names have been published for the same features. An important advance towards the sorting out of the resulting confusion has been made by the Royal Geographical Society's new map entitled “The Course of Antarctic Exploration between Longitudes 20° W. and 110° E.” (Geographical Journal, xciv, No. 3, 1939, text pp. 204–8).

The Commonwealth Government has assigned the following limits in longitude to the “Lands” in the Australian Antarctic Territory: Enderby Land, 45°–55° E.; Kemp Land, 55°–60°E.; Mac-Robertson Land, 60°–73° E.; Princess Elizabeth Land, 73°–86° E.; Kaiser Wilhelm II Land, 86°–91° E.; Queen Mary Land, 91°–102° E.; and Wilkes Land, 102°–136° E.

To the student of Antarctic history the details of its discovery, and of the early voyages along its shores, are matters of great interest and are now coming under critical review. The area over which there is most difference of opinion is that part of Antarctica which projects as a great peninsula, Graham Land, to the south of South America. It is this sector which forms the subject of a recent memoir by Professor William Herbert Hobbs of Ann Arbor, Michigan, followed by a detailed review of that work by A. R. H. Professor Hobbs's memoir is entitled “The Discoveries of Antarctica within the American Sector as revealed by Maps and Documents” (Trans. Amer. Phil. Soc. Philadelphia, New Series, xxxi, 1939, pp. 1–71), while A. R. H.'s review appears under the heading “On Some Misrepresentations of Antarctic History” (Geographical Journal, xciv, 1939, pp. 309–30). For complete understanding of the disputed facts concentrated effort is required in the reading of both authors. That A. R. H. in his review should find it necessary to state that the author of the memoir “denounces as forgeries what are most evidently genuine documents, with no further proof than his own falsification of the photograph he obtained from Cornwall House”, shows the need for the student of Antarctic history not to limit his reading to one only of the two writers.

According to a note by Allan Crawford (Geographical Journal, xciv, p. 412) H.M.S. Milford called at Gough Island in the Southern Ocean at the end of March 1938. Following instructions from the Colonial Office, the captain landed with a party to hoist the Union Jack and declare this island a dependency of St Helena. Discovered in the sixteenth century by the Portuguese, and named by them Diego Alvarez, it seems to have been lost sight of until, in 1731, Captain Gough, homeward bound in his ship Richmond round the Cape of Good Hope, sighted an island in the South Atlantic, which henceforth went by his name. It was only slowly that geographers came to the conclusion that Diego Alvarez and Gough were one and the same island, and then the former name gradually disappeared from charts. Gough Island has been claimed as British territory since Captain Gough reported it.

Frank Wild's death must have been the first thought of Antarctic men meeting each other this winter. Apart from the leaders, no other Antarctic figure has so impressed himself on so many of the rank and file as Wild; for he had been a member of no less than five great expeditions, second in command on the later ones, but on all, whether in high position or not, acting as the guide and instructor to those new to Antarctic work.

The most striking feature of the pelagic operations in the season 1938–39 was the great decline in the catch in spite of the employment of three factory ships and twenty-six catchers more than in the previous season.

The technique of landing a party in the centre of a totally unmapped area and working from an aeroplane-stocked base has been developed largely by Bradford Washburn in Alaska. In the Alpine Journal for November 1939, p. 213, he makes some interesting remarks in this connection.

In The Polar Record, No. 8, pp. 152–66, an article was published on “Polar Institutions throughout the World”. It is a pleasure to record the existence of two additional Institutes, one in Austria and the other in Japan.

It is reported in Polar-drboken for 1939 that Roald Amundsen's ship used during the North-West Passage Expedition has been saved from destruction. The Town Council of San Francisco has granted $12,500 for its restoration at the Golden Gate. When the first part of this work is completed a house will be built over the ship, as has been done with the Fram at Oslo.

Docent Adolf Hoel has issued the following statement:

“In consequence of the state of war prevailing in Europe, the International Exhibition for Polar Exploration at Bergen, Norway, in 1940 has been temporally postponed. It therefore naturally follows that the Polar Exploration Conference planned in conjunction with the Exhibition will have to be deferred until such time as the plans can be realised.”

The poisonous properties of shark meat have long been a subject of interest to travellers and dwellers in northern regions. In a short but important paper (Medd. om Grønland. Bd. 125, Nr. 5, 1939, pp. 1–16) Ove Bøje gives the results of an investigation at Upernavik. He summarises former knowledge of the subject derived from both European and native sources, and goes on to an account of his experiments on sledge-dogs. Similar in their effect to the flesh of the Greenland shark (Somniosus microcephalus), though to a lesser extent, are the meat of the “uvac” or Greenland cod (Gadus ogac) and the sea scorpion (Cottus scorpius), and sometimes, with weakly subjects, the flesh of the halibut (Reinhardtius hippoglossides). Similar, but apparently not the same, are the poisonous qualities of the liver of the polar bear, the bearded seal and the Greenland sledge-dog. The toxin in the shark meat apparently is inactivated, but not destroyed by the drying process to which the flesh is normally subjected before being given by the Eskimo to his dogs. Enzymes present in the fresh tissues of any animal can apparently re-activate the toxin in the shark flesh if the two types of meat be eaten together. A number of hypotheses are discussed, and there seems to be some evidence for believing that the toxin may be derived from the common food of these various fishes on the Greenland coast in the autumn. This consists of a pelagic mollusc (a Pterapod, Limacina helicina), and the “uvac” and even eider ducks sometimes themselves show symptoms of poisoning after feeding on this food. The author regrets that so far he has been unable to undertake detailed chemical analysis of the flesh of the species in question. Judging by symptoms he considers that the toxin is probably related chemically to muscarine (a fungal poison).