National Antarctic Expedition Research Articles

Natural history and the Sea - papers from a conference of The Society for the History of Natural History

CONROY, J. W. H., 1999 Scottish National Antarctic Expedition. The Scottish Naturalist 111: 159-182. CREDLAND, A. G.,1999 Some notes on the development of cetology, popular interest in the whale tribe, and a famous literary whale. The Scottish Naturalist 111: 93-126. DEACON, M. B., 1999 A grounding in science? John Murray of the Challenger, his grandfather John Macfarlane, and the Macfarlane Museum of Natural History at Bridge of Allan. The Scottish Naturalist 111: 225-265. DURANT, G. P. and FARROW, G. E., 1999 On the rocks in the Southern and Atlantic Oceans

A history of leisure activities at SANAE, an antarctic research base (1970–93)

Leisure activities of the crew at the South African National Antarctic Expedition (SANAE) are reported for the period from 1970-1993. Favorite pastimes at the underground base were card games, pool, darts, movies and videos, music, reading, and mind-games. Cliques and hierarchies developed among the men. Outdoor activities were limited to the summer. The significance of physical activities in social isolation is explored.

Victor Campbell and Michael Barne in Svalbard: the 1914 voyage of Willem Barents

AbstractIn 1914 the Northern Exploration Company of London employed Commander Victor Campbell (the leader of the Northern Party of Robert Falcon Scott's Terra Nova expedition of 1910–1913) to voyage to Spitsbergen in charge of a mineral-prospecting team. Campbell sailed in the schooner Willem Barents, taking Michael Barne (the second lieutenant on the British National Antarctic Expedition of 1901–1904) as mate. There was a mixed British and Norwegian crew. Between May and August, Campbell took the schooner to various sites between Recherchefjorden and Krossfjorden on the west coast of Spitsbergen, maintaining two-way contact with London through the Norwegian radio station at Grønfjorden. Hearing that war was about to break out, the expedition visited the German meteorological station at Ebeltofthamna, then sailed back to Norway, from where the British members returned to England.

William Speirs Bruce and the Scottish national Antarctic expedition

Abstract The role of William Speirs Bruce as progenitor, inspiration, and leader of the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition 1902–1904 is examined with reference to original documents and the recently published log of the Scotia. The expedition is viewed as one of the most successful in the Heroic Period Polar exploration.

The Scottish national antarctic expedition's survey of Laurie Island, South Orkneys

Abstract The Scottish National Antarctic Expedition (SNAE) arrived at Laurie Island in late March 1903 but serious mapping did not begin until after mid‐winter, starting with a local compass survey. Work with a theodolite was commenced in late July but little progress was made before it was brought to a halt by an accident to the instrument in early September. From then until November, relying mainly on a sextant, the survey was extended over the greater part of the Island. The SNAE's manuscript map, while showing virtually all of Laurie Island's coastline in detail, depicts little of the mountainous interior. Triangulation by theodolite was restricted to part of Scotia Bay. The remainder of the Island was mapped by a method involving the measurement of one or more additional base‐lines and the intersection and resection of sextant and compass angles. Comparison of the SNAE's published outline with a recent Landsat‐based map of Laurie Island does not reveal any serious flaws in the survey.

Profile: Thomas Crean

AbstractBorn in Annascaul, Ireland in 1877, Thomas Crean enlisted in the Royal Navy in 1893 and was serving in New Zealand when Scott's British National Antarctic Expedition passed through en route for McMurdo Sound, Antarctica. As an AB in Discovery he gained experience which he later put to good use in two further British expeditions, Scott's British Antarctic (Terra Nova) Expedition, in which he sledged to the polar plateau, and Shackleton's Imperial Tran-Antarctic (Endurance) Expedition, in which he was given charge of the dog teams, drifted on the pack ice of the Weddell Sea and took part in the epic open-boat journey to South Georgia.

Profile: Albert Borlase Armitage

Albert Armitage was the second in command of both the Jackson-Harmsworth expedition of 1884–1897 and R. F. Scott's British National Antarctic Expedition, 1901–1904. He never led an expedition himself; as Frank Debenham wrote (1944), ‘For polar work his mind was perhaps not quite flexible enough or his aims were not sufficiently ambitious to make him lead an expedition of his own.’ Despite this he played a leading role in both expeditions, and contributed significantly to Arctic and Antarctic exploration.

The Scottish National Antarctic Expedition 1902–04

On 21 July 1904, just over 80 years ago, the barque-rigged, Norwegian-built auxiliary steamship Scotia sailed home up the Clyde with members of the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition (SNAE), concluding one of the most successful expeditions of the heroic period of Antarctic exploration. Contemporaneous with the more spectacular British Antarctic Expedition (1901–03) commanded by Robert Falcon Scott, the Scotia party under William Spiers Bruce had overwintered on Laurie Island (60° 44ʹ S, 44° 50ʹ W) in the South Orkney Islands, explored for the first time the oceanography of the Weddell Sea, assembled an important collection of scientific material, and discovered Coats Land, an icebound stretch of the East Antarctica coast.While Scott's Discovery expedition had emphasized geographical exploration inland from the Ross Sea sector of Antarctica, Bruce in the Scotia had concentrated more on scientific discovery in the Weddell Sea sector. On 12 November 1904 in Edinburgh, members of the Scotia and Discovery expeditions were guests at the 20th anniversary dinner of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, Bruce and Scott together responding to a presidential toast that honoured the success of both.

Dr Harvey Pirie and the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition (1902-4). Scottish science and medicine in the Falklands and Antarctica.

Shortly after receiving a science and medical degree at Edinburgh, Dr Harvey Pirie joined the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition (1902-4) under Bruce. The naturalist team explored East Falkland, Laurie Island in the South Orkneys, and made the first oceanographic investigation of the Weddell Sea. After sighting Antarctica and naming the coast seen Coats Land, they returned to the Clyde via Gough Island and Cape Town. After a period in Scottish private practice, Pirie became a bacteriologist; he joined the Colonial Medical Service in 1913 and served in Kenya. In 1918 he organised the bacteriological services at the South African Institute for Medical Research in Johannesburg, and became deputy-director, 1926-41.

Introductory remarks

It is now only 80 years since man first set foot on the Antarctic Continent. Thereafter there were sporadic expeditions from various nations, which were mainly exploratory in the geographical sense although scientific studies were increasingly included. Even so, the area was so vast (13.5 x 10 6 km 2 ; 5 1/4 million square miles), the expeditions so intermittent, widely dispersed and of such short duration (at most two years), that there could be no continuity of observation. Apart from the steady occupation by Argentina since 1904 of the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition’s station in the South Orkney Islands, long-term studies began with a naval operation in 1943, the forerunner of the British Antarctic Survey, and have continued to this day. But really it was not until the International Geophysical Year in 1957/8 that a broad based scientific attack on the continent was made. At that time 12 countries maintained 44 stations, both around the perimeter and in the interior of the continent; today the number is 27.

Antarctic Ecosystems The freshwater lakes of Signy Island and their fauna

Prior to 1962 work on freshwater within the British Sector of the Antarctic had been confined to the collection of specimens and their subsequent taxonomic evaluation. Collections were made by such expeditions as the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition 1902- 04, the various Discover y Investigations in this region 1925-37, the British Graham Land Expedition 1934-37 and the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey 1945-62. During the 1961/1962 summer season an ecological investigation of the freshwater lakes of Signy Island, South Orkney Islands, was started. This paper is an interim report on that work.

Biological research by the British Antarctic Survey

The Antarctic Peninsula, the islands rising from the Scotia Ridge, and the Falkland Islands are a key area for biologists interested in the origin, relationships, and adaptations of the Antarctic flora and fauna. Of all Antarctic regions, furthermore, this has perhaps been the most intensively studied. The pioneer observations of J. R. and J. G. Forster during Cook's circumnavigation in 1772–75, and of James Eights in 1833 (Caiman, 1937), supplemented by the less systematic accounts of those engaged in early nineteenth-century sealing and whaling voyages (Weddell, 1825; Allen, 1899) paved the way for the thorough scientific programmes of more modern expeditions. The first of these, theBelgicaexpedition under de Gerlache, 1897–99, yielded much general information and brought back an apterous fly{Belgica antarctica),the first higher insect to be discovered in the true Antarctic. Soon afterwards, the Swedish South Polar Expedition led by Nordenskjold, 1901–04, brought to the Antarctic an outstanding botanist, the late C. J. F. Skottsberg, whose botanical researches on Antarctic and sub-Antarctic themes were to last for over half a century (Skottsberg, 1963). During the following decade the two French expeditions led by Charcot, 1903–05 and 1908–10, contributed important microbiological and ornithological information, and in 1902–04 the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition under Bruce made the first study of the South Orkney Islands and provided a general evaluation of botanical and biogeographical problems (Rudmose Brown, 1912). All these expeditions made general collections of flora and fauna which revealed that the Antarctic Peninsula and its adjacent islands were the richest area, biologically speaking, of the whole Antarctic region. Farther north, the Swedish Magellanic Expedition, led by Skottsberg in 1907–09, provided what is still the only published account of the vegetation of the Falkland Islands and information vital to the evaluation of biogeographical relationships between the Scotia Ridge, the Antarctic Peninsula, and the Magellanic region of South America. Skottsberg (1912) also described the vegetation of South Georgia, where pioneer work had been done by Will during the German International Polar Year expedition, 1882–83. The botanical work on this island, up to 1964, has recently been comprehensively reviewed by Greene (1964a).

South African National Antarctic Expedition, 1959–60

South African National Antarctic Expedition, 1959–60

A relic of the Scottish national Antarctic expedition

A relic of the Scottish national Antarctic expedition

Fifty years ago: The Scottish national Antarctic expedition

Fifty years ago: The Scottish national Antarctic expedition

Postal History of the Falkland Islands Dependencies

The Antartic continent has been in the limelight during the past year, and it is well known that several countries are claiming parts of the area, which unfortunately overlap. Possessions belonging to Great Britain, but at present disputed, are all islands and territories lying between longitudes 20°and 50° W., south of latitudes 58° S. The islands enclosed by these boundaries are Dependencies of the Falkland Islands consisting of many islands and part the Antartic Continent. South Georgia, the South Orkney Islands, Graham Land, the South Shetland Islands, the South Sandwich Islands, Alexander I Land and part of Coats Land lie within this area, which amounts in all to about three million square miles, and the territories, portions of which are as yet unexplored, extend down to the South Pole. Great Britain permanently occupies the Dependencies, carrying on a whaling industry and scientific research. In addition the Argentine Government has a meteorological station on Laurie Island in the South Orkneys. This was established in 1904 at the request of Dr W. S. Bruce, leader of the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition, who had built the station two years earlier. Since 1904 it has been continually manned by meteorologists sent out each year from Argentina. The original party had a post office, the first to appear in Antarctica. This and the more recent ones set up under British administration are marked on the accompanying map. Owing to the impermanence of the population of this part of the world they are naturally not all open continuously.

Antarctic Place-names given by the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition, 1902–04

The following place-names in the South Orkney Islands and the Antarctic Continent were proposed by Dr W. S. Bruce; they were first published in the maps accompanying his paper in the Scottish Geographical Magazine for June 1905, and in the Reports on the Scientific Results of the Voyage of S.Y. Scotia, 1902–04 (Edinburgh, 1907–).

Mr. E. E. M. Joyce

ERNEST E. MILLS JOYCE, who died on May 2 at the age of sixty-five, was one of the remarkable group of naval ratings chosen by Captain Scott for the National Antarctic Expedition of 1901, and his name will live with those of Frank Wild and Edgar Evans among the sailor explorers of his time.

Commander F. Wild, C.B.E.

COMMANDER FRANK WILD, whose death took place on August 21, was born at Skelton, in Yorkshire, in 1873. His father was clerk of the Eversholt Parochial Charity at Woburn (Beds.) and on his mother's side he claimed descent from the celebrated antarctic pioneer, Captain Cook. He entered the Merchant Service in 1889, receiving his early training in sail in the famous clipper ship Sobraon. He entered the Royal Navy in 1900, and was serving as an A.B. in the Vernon when he was appointed to the National Antarctic Expedition (1901–4) under Scott. On this expedition, while still serving as a naval rating, he earned the praise and admiration of Scott himself for his coolnese and resource under danger and for his qualities of leadership. But oven more important for his future career was the attachment which grew up then between him and Shackleton, an attachment which developed into a lifelong friendship.

XXX.—Actiniaria and Zoantharia of the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition, 1902–1904

The collection of Actiniaria and Zoantharia made by the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition contains nineteen species, one of which, Porponia antarctica Carlgren, I described as a new species in 1914. In all there were six species from the Antarctic, three from the Falkland Islands, six from the west coast of Cape Province, three from the Cape Verde Islands, and one, not specifically determined, from Gough Island. The new species here described are Epiactis vincentina, Epiactis brucei, Sicyonis antarctica, and Palythoa vincentina. I have not thought it necessary to compile a complete list of the literature and synonyms of the species, since in the papers cited full information is given.