The Voyage of Discovery II, 1950-51

Abstract

Before the war, several papers on the work carried out by the Discovery Committee in the Southern Ocean were read before the Society. In 1949, pending the grant of a Royal Charter for a National Oceanographic Council, the National Institute of Oceanography came into being, under a provisional Executive Committee appointed by the Admiralty. The Institute, which was founded to do basic work in oceanography, took over the oceanographical group of the Royal Naval Scientific Service, then at the Admiralty Research Laboratory at Teddington. Since the Institute was also to continue in part the work of the Discovery Investigations, the staff and assets of the Discovery Committee were also absorbed. The Royal Research Ships Discovery II and William Scoresby were bought by the Admiralty from the Government of the Falkland Islands, and presented to the Institute. Late in 1950 the Royal Charter incorporating the National Oceanographic Council as a permanent body was approved and sealed. As both ships had been requisitioned for war service considerable work was required to convert them back again for scientific research purposes. The first ship to be got away, in January 1950, was the William Scoresby, and I will give a short description of her programme and work before referring to Discovery IFs cruise. Briefly, the Scoresby's programme comprised work on the Benguela Current off the South-West African coast, a search for Latimeria off the coast of Natal, and whale-marking, plus some trawling, off the west and north-west coasts of Australia. The name Latimeria refers to a Coelacanth fish, thought to be extinct for about eighty million years, but of which a specimen was taken in a trawl off East London in 1938. The first survey of the Benguela Current was satisfactorily completed, but the attempts made with trawl, long-line and trap to catch Latimeria were not successful, owing to the very strong current prevailing off the Natal coast. Very bad weather and persistent head gales after the Scoresby left Mauritius prevented the ship from reaching Australia and she was forced to return. As it was then too late to reach Australia in time for the whale-marking programme, the ship was diverted to whale-marking near Madagascar, followed by a second and even more successful survey of the Benguela Current. The Scoresby returned to England in November 1950. Some very interesting preliminary results about the Benguela Survey are available, and among these is the dis? covery of a possible breeding ground of the pilchard, now an important fish to South African industry. Preliminary notes on this subject were published last year in Nature, by Hart and Marshall.1 But my main topic is the recent voyage of the Discovery II, a voyage which was planned to fill in a number of gaps in our pre-war observations in the Southern Ocean. For some years before the last war one of our main objectives had been the completion of an oceanographical survey of this 1 Nature 168 (1951) 272.