A NEW ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION

[The 'Discovery,' originally built for the National Antarctic Expedition 1901-4, is to be reconstituted for further South Atlantic research work, especially as regards whaling. In the following article an authoritative sketch is given of the nature of this new enterprise.-EDR. N. C.]

IN the spring of 1920 a Blue Book 1 was published dealing with research and development in the dependencies of the Falkland Islands. No great notice was taken of it by the public, which does not expect to find interest in Blue Books, and would, indeed, have had to embark upon a minor research to find the interest in this one; but, concealed in a somewhat unwieldy body, this Blue Book had a soul, and that consisted in a proposal for the employment of research ships on a scale comparable with the expeditions of the Michael Sars or the Challenger.

Many projects that have died an early death from financial starvation are embalmed in Blue Books, but this proposal has the means of support behind it in the shape of a great whaling industry, and adds nothing to the burdens of the home Treasury. It is true that the cost of shipbuilding has remained so inordinate that the proposal has undergone curtailment, at least temporarily ; but at the present date the funds in sight have proved adequate to justify the purchase of the Discovery, although she will need extensive reconstruction.

There could be no surer way of diminishing the utility of the scheme than by restricting it entirely to researches with immediate economic aims, and there was, and is, no intention of doing this. Nevertheless, it must be recognised that the whaling industry of the dependencies, which pays the piper, will call a good many of the tunes; and it is, therefore, well to prefix to these remarks a brief account of that industry. In the Book of Job we find the inquiries, 'Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook? . . . Canst thou fill his skin with barbed irons ?' For several centuries these questions might have been answered in the affirmative as regards whales which float when dead, but not until the Norwegian, Svend Foyn, invented the harpoon-gun in 1865

1 Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Research and Development in the Dependencies of the Falkland Islands (Cmd. 657).

could it be so answered for those which normally sink when they are killed. Nearly all the whales found in the dependencies are of the latter class, and Svend Foyn's invention when perfected rendered possible the rise of a great new industry, by which his countrymen continue to benefit to this day. That industry started in South Georgia in 1904, and in the South Shetlands in` 1906, and its products already exceed 25,000,000l. in value. Among its pioneers the most notable names are those of Mr. Alexander Lange, who died lately in Norway, and Captain C. A. Larsen, who is still in the full tide of activity and enterprise. Captain Larsen has another title to fame, derived from his wonderful voyage on the Jason in the Weddell Sea. Now the Weddell Sea is to ships what the Bight of Benin used to be to travellers:

Beware and take care of the Bight of Benin,

For one that comes out there are forty go in.

But the Jason came out, after a voyage described by Fricker as the most important since those of Ross.

The local whaling industry is almost confined to the two dependencies already mentioned, although it is occasionally pursued also in the South Orkneys and in the Falkland Islands themselves. The main objects of attack are the humpback, the fin, and the blue whales, scientifically known as Megaptera nodosa, Balanoptera physalus, and Balanoptera musculus respectively. In the early days of the industry the catch consisted almost entirely of humpbacks, the smallest of the three varieties; later on the catch of fin whales increased, exceeding in 1913-14 that of any other kind; and since 1913-14 the proportion of blue whales caught has become large. The blue whale is the greatest monster of the deep, ordinarily 90 feet long, and occa onally 100 feet. Apart from other causes which may have affe ted the relative numbers caught of each species, it is clear that the earlier types of whaling steamer were too small to cope effectually with blue whales, while recently humpbacks have been protected in the belief that they had been overfished. All three species of whale belong to the family of fin whales, in which the whalebone is of little value, and, although there are several minor products of the industry, its mainstay is whale oil, which has usually brought in over 95 per cent. of the takings. This oil is used for lubrication, fibre dressing, and currying leather, but principally for making soap, and, since the development of the hydrogenation treatment, for the manufacture of edible fat. During the war whale oil assumed great importance for the manufacture of glycerine for explosives, and the entire output of the dependencies was acquired for this purpose.

In the seventeenth, eighteenth, and early part of the nineteenth

centuries Britain took a leading part in the whaling of the day, which consisted chiefly in the pursuit of 'right,' or whalebone, whales in the waters of Spitzbergen and Greenland. The pioneers were the Company of Muscovia Merchants, who despatched the Mary Margaret to Greenland in 1611, under the command of Thomas Edge, and carrying six Biskayners experienced in whaling. In 1622 Captain Edge furnished a description of eight varieties of whale found off Greenland and an account of the methods of hunting them and boiling down the blubber, to which he added a number of quaint drawings. The new industry throve, and two centuries later was still in full swing. In 1820 Captain W. Scoresby, F.R.S.E., published a complete treatise on whaling, dealing fully with the capture of whales, their cutting up, or flensing, the packing of the products, and their subsequent manufacture in the United Kingdom. Beautifully illustrated, provided with minute diagrams of all apparatus, and illuminated by all the scientific knowledge of that time, this book still remains unrivalled in whaling literature. But the glory has departed, 'right' whales are nearly extinct, the British practical whaler is no more, and Svend Foyn's invention, with its subsequent development in Norwegian coastal whaling, has had the not unnatural result that technical skill in modern methods of whaling with the harpoon-gun is almost confined to his countrymen. There is much British capital embarked in the industry, but scarcely any trained British personnel. As the whaling industry is the main support of several Norwegian towns, it cannot be expected that the Norwegians should show much zeal to teach others their means of livelihood, while the British seaman is disposed to prefer the comfort of a roomy forecastle in a comparatively steady vessel to a life of pitch and 'oss on a whale-catcher not more than 100 feet long, and abnor ally unstable, because she is made without a keel, so as to turn quicker in pursuit.

Those who would take to whaling must expect not only hardship, but adventure also, and more of both than is necessarily involved in life on small vessels in uncharted seas. On a calm day, in the waters of the South Shetlands, an astonished captain beheld a huge sea, a veritable wall of water, bearing down on his little craft. With the presence of mind universal in his profession, he gave instant orders to the helmsman to put her nose on to the wave. This, no doubt, saved the vessel from complete destruction, but notwithstanding masses of water swept her from end to end, destroying the bridge and injuring all on deck. No other waves followed, and the vessel limped home unmolested for repairs. The cause of the occurrence was never certainly known, but was believed to be a submarine volcanic eruption.

On another occasion an enraged sperm whale succeeded in

charging the vessel with so much effect that one of her steel plates was deeply dented, sixty rivets were started, and the forecastle filled with water so fast as to necessitate a hasty return to harbour.

Although the whales are caught mainly on the high seas, the industry cannot profitably be carried on without the use of harbours, in which the carcases can be cut up and boiled down, either at factories on land or upon specially equipped vessels known as floating factories. This need for harbours renders the industry amenable to the control of the local Government, in this case that of the Falkland Islands. The nearest foreign harbours are Chilian, and are too far from the haunts of the whales. Accordingly the problem of controlling the industry fell to Britain.

Reference has already been made to the collapse of the Spitzbergen and Greenland whaling industry owing to the practical extinction of the quarry, and the history of whaling is full of similar instances. It may be inferred that the industry in the dependencies is subject to a like peril, and it is the part of wise government to investigate the problem and, if possible, to take measures to obviate the danger. But when the Colonial Office, in co-operation with the local Government, came to consider the matter, it was confronted by a mass of opinions, often interested and usually conflicting, which proved upon inquiry to have but a slender basis of ascertained fact. A review of the position disclosed that most of the information necessary for framing a scientific policy remained to be acquired. The whales appeared in the waters of the dependencies in widely varying numbers at uncertain times during the Southern summer. The migrations of the fin and the blue whales at other seasons of the year were quite unknown. There were records of a migration of humpbacks up and down the West Coast of Africa in the Southern winter, or English summer months, but these migrants had not, and have not, been identified with the schools of humpbacks hunted in the dependencies. The anatomy of whales was well understood, but there was complete ignorance of their breeding habits. The period required for a whale to reach maturity was variously estimated at from five to fifty years. Most important of all, it was not clear whether the whales seen and hunted every year in the dependencies constituted the entire stock, or whether, as Dr. Hjort and other Norwegian authorities believed, these whales were merely a small fraction of a stock widely distributed in the Southern circumpolar regions, forming a reservoir from which the visible stock in the dependencies was continually replenished.

The financial success of the pioneers led to a flood of applications for whaling facilities, and it soon became clear that without the gravest risk the exercise of control could not be deferred

pending the settlement of these difficult scientific questions. The prevention of waste and the protection of female whales accompanied by calves were obviously desirable measures, but, clearly, it was also necessary to restrict the total catch. The Government decided to effect this by limiting the number of the small steamers provided with harpoon guns which actually catch the whales. The system was embodied in leases, licences, and legislation, and has been steadily maintained. But it has always been recognised that this system, although framed in the light of the best technical opinion, lacks a firm basis of definite scientific knowledge.

The need for obtaining such a basis has been kept constantly in view, with the object, not only of safeguarding the existing industry against collapse, but also of ascertaining whether it could safely be extended. Before the war arrangements were made for collecting measurements and other statistical data at all the whaling stations. Major G. E. H. Barrett-Hamilton, a well-known biologist, was despatched to South Georgia to study whaling on the spot, and a committee was appointed to collect information in London. Major Barrett-Hamilton did work of much value and greater promise, but his labours were brought to an end at an early stage by his premature death in the dependency. The work of the committee was suspended on the outbreak of war. Towards the end of the war another committee was appointed with a wider scope, including not only whaling, but other industries present or possible in the dependencies, and also the question of what purely scientific investigations are most required in connection with those regions. This was the committee which published the report of 1920 and recommended the employment of research ships. In the meantime a measure had been adopted to provide the necessary funds by increasing the local export duty on whale oil, and these funds have now accumulated sufficiently to enable the matter to be taken in hand seriously.

Under the guidance of Sir Sidney Harmer, who has made the subject of the biology of whales peculiarly his own, the committee arrived at the conclusion that the solution of the many problems regarding these animals which required elucidation could only be obtained by means of investigations conceived on broad lines, and it is accordingly contemplated that the research ship should not merely pursue the direct study of whales both in the waters of the dependencies and in other seas, but should avail itself of all the resources of oceanography and meteorology for the study of whale food, the temperature, salinity and currents of the sea, and the ice and climatic conditions which might have a bearing on whaling. Among the many lines of research which present themselves, one of the most important is the study of the geographical distribution and migration of the stock of whales which is at pre