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.”

“Either spirits of wine, or some fatty substance, such as stearine of coco-nut oil, tallow or blubber” is the fuel described by McClintock as used on his sledge journeys of the last century. Since those days both the type of fuel and its precise method of use have gradually changed with increasing knowledge and experience. In the present instance it is intended to discuss the use of fuel only in so far as it concerns the unsupported sledge party which must attempt to remain as long in the field as is possible on the supplies that it can carry from the beginning. In such circumstances it has always been obvious that the aim must be to reduce the ration of food and fuel to the absolute minimum of weight. The most efficient fuel is clearly that which provides on combustion the greatest amount of heat per unit weight, though some compromise must be made between the greatest “efficiency” in this sense and questions of safety and convenience. For many years this compromise has resulted in the general use of pressure stoves (such as the Primus) burning liquid paraffin. There is still, however, controversy as to the precise method of use by the sledge party of the small amount of fuel that is carried.

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).

With the passing of Tom Crean, who died in August 1938, there goes another of a fast dwindling band of stalwarts, the naval Petty Officers of the Scott expeditions to the Antarctic.

When Captain Scott was selected to take command of the Discovery on the National Antarctic Expedition of 1901–4, he followed the example of the 1875 expedition under Nares and took with him an almost entirely naval personnel. Amongst these was a tall Irish A.B., Thomas Crean, who even then was celebrated amongst his fellows for a merry tongue and a facility for getting into tight places. He accompanied Lieut. Barne on his journey over the Barrier and fell into more crevasses than any other member of the party. He also went through some rotten ice just before the relief of the Discovery, and would certainly have been drowned had he not kept his head and stayed calmly in the mess of brash-ice until help and a rope were brought.

The extraction of oil from whales is a very ancient process, but no regular oil production existed until the Basques started the whaling industry in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. With their primitive equipment, they only made use of the blubber, the part of the whale richest in oil. The blubber was cut up into small pieces which were cooked in open iron cauldrons. This method was in use until the beginning of the present century, when less wasteful methods were introduced in order to utilise as much as possible of the carcass. Flesh, entrails and bones are now cooked in closed boilers under increased pressure and temperature, and since about 1925 a combined steam and mechanical treatment of the material, known as “apparatus cooking”, has resulted in still more efficient extraction.

In the last number of The Polar Record an account was given of the International Whaling Conference held in London in June 1938. The general procedure was described, and it was explained that the governments of several nations interested in whaling had signed a Protocol embodying certain amendments to the Agreement of 1937.

It has been brought to our notice that in a recent paper (Astronomical Longitude and Azimuth Observations, Monthly Notices of tlie Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 97, No. 7, 1937, p. 489) Professor Nørlund, the Director of the Danish Geodetic Survey, made the following remarks about the supposed westward drift of Greenland:

“We know that Wegener considered that his hypothesis of the displacement of the continents had been supported by longitude determinations in Greenland, and from them he calculated that Greenland is moving westwards about 2O.metres a year. But the old observations used by Wegener were carried out with primitive instruments and he overrated their exactitude. In 1927 and 1936 the Danish Geodetic Survey carried out longitude determinations at Qôrnoq on the west coast of Greenland with a first class transit instrument, both times on the same pillar. Practically speaking the two measurements gave the same result. It is most likely that the deviations of the old measurements from the new ones are the result of observational errors.”