National Antarctic Expedition Research Articles

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.

Tom Crean: an Appreciation

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.

Bequests for Research in Marine Biology

MR. EDWABD THOMAS BROWNE, a governor of the Marine Biological Association, who died on December 10, 1937, was for many years the leading authority in Great Britain on medusae and other ccelenterates. Under his will, a number of valuable bequests are made to different bodies for the benefit of scientific research. The residue of his estate, estimated to amount to some £50,000, goes to the Royal Society to form a fund for the promotion of marine expeditions or individual research on marine biology. In addition, £6,725, together with scientific books, instruments and apparatus, are left to the Marine Biological Association for special purposes in connexion with the Plymouth Laboratory, £15,000 to Queen's College, Oxford, for a research fellowship and a scholarship in biology, and £5,000 to University College, London, for a postgraduate research studentship in zoology, in memory of his wife. After graduating at Oxford, Mr. Browne took up the serious study of zoology under the late Prof. W. F. R. Weldon at University College, London, in 1891, and remained at the College as a research worker until 1909. His summers were spent at different marine laboratories, Port Erin, Plymouth,Millport and at other places suitable for his work, including Valencia, Falmouth and the Scilly Isles. A monograph on the British medusae is nearly completed, and provision is made in his will for its publication. He examined and reported on the medusae from many foreign collections, especially from expeditions, including those from the Maldive and Laccadive Archipelago, the Gulf of Manaar, the Indian Ocean, the Suez Canal, the Scottish Antarctic Expedition, the British National Antarctic Expedition, the Falkland Islands, Norway and Spitsbergen, Browne was a very thorough and careful worker, with a complete knowledge of the literature of the groups in which he specialized. He gave great assistance both financially and, as a member of their respective councils, in the administration of the scientific societies in which he was interested, including the Royal Microscopical Society and the Quekett Club.

James Eights: a Pioneer Antarctic Naturalist

DR. W. T. CALMAN has done worthy service to the memory of an American naturalist of the early nineteenth century in his presidential address to the Linnean Society (Proc. Linn. Soc., 149, 171; 1937). The accuracy of the descriptions and drawings made by James Eights, his discovery of a ten-legged pycnogon (Decolopoda), in which no one believed until the rediscovery of the species by the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition almost seventy years later, his discovery of a new seal and a new dolphin, neither of which he named, his description of the breeding of the king penguin, and of the South Shetland Islands, all mark him as a naturalist of keen perception. It is unfortunate that the appearance of his descriptions in journals not readily accessible should have obscured and delayed the recognition of his merit, and more sad to learn that in his own country he dropped out of the current and lived for a quarter of a century, until his death in 1882, in loneliness, obscurity and poverty.

On the ascarids parasitic in seals, with special reference to the genus Contracaecum

Difficulties encountered in the determination of species of Contracaecum from seals led the writer to undertake a comparative morpholgical study of a considerable amount of material. This included the Ascarids from seals collected by the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition (Scotia) in 1902–4, and deposited in the Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh, which were obtained on loan through the courtesy of Dr A. C. Stephen. In the present paper some results of this investigation are presented, and short notes are added on other species of Ascaridae recorded from Pinnipedia.

The Occurrence of Glossopteris in the Beacon Sandstone of Ferrar Glacier, South Victoria Land

The presence of members of the Glossopteris flora in Antarctica was first attested by the material collected from Mount Buckley by Dr. Wilson and Lieut. Bowers on Capt. Scott's last expedition to the South Pole. and the now famous specimens were described by Professor A. C. Seward (1914). Traces of fossil plants in Antarctica, were, however, first discovered by Mr. H. T. Ferrar, a member of the National Antarctic Expedition, 1901–1904, and were briefly described by Arber (1907), who reported, on some specimens from the Ferrar Glacier, that “several of these show fair-sized carbonaceous impressions or markings, which in all probability are of vegetable origin”. The evidence presented by this unpromising material did not “permit of any opinion as to the botanical nature or affinities of the fossils themselves, nor of the geological age of the beds in which they occur” (Arber, 1907, p. 48). Professor Seward examined the specimens and agreed with this conclusion (1914, p. 2).

XXVII.—Scottish National Antarctic Expedition, 1902–1904: Cambrian Organic Remains from a Dredging in the Weddell Sea

From a biological point of view considerable interest must always attend any investigation of the earliest known organisms, and, although we may legitimately infer that a flora and fauna existed prior to Cambrian times, the organisms preserved for us in rocks of that age constitute, at present, the first chapter of palæontological history. For this reason alone the Archæocyathinæ are important, since they form part of the Lower Cambrian fauna. When, however, we consider that the genera included in the group are very distinct from one another (indicating that the family was probably of considerable antiquity even in those early times), that the types have, as far as we know, a wide geographical distribution, and that to certain skeletal characters usually associated with the Porifera they unite others more common among the Cœlenterata, interest is still further stimulated. On the other hand, although recorded in great abundance from several widely separated localities, they are not, as a rule, common fossils in Cambrian strata, and consequently the group has not received much attention.

(1) Scottish National Antarctic Expedition: Report on the Scientific Results of the voyage of S.Y. “Scotia,” during the years 1902, 1903, and 1904, under the Leadership of Dr. William S. Bruce (2) British Museum (Natural History) British Antarctic (“Terra Nova”) Expedition, 1910 Natural History Report Zoology

(1) Scottish National Antarctic Expedition: Report on the Scientific Results of the voyage of S.Y. “Scotia,” during the years 1902, 1903, and 1904, under the Leadership of Dr. William S. Bruce (2) British Museum (Natural History) British Antarctic (“Terra Nova”) Expedition, 1910 Natural History Report Zoology

A New Mode of Transportation by Ice: the Raised Marine Muds of South Victoria Land (Antarctica)

The old and somewhat vexed subject of the methods of transportation of material by land- and sea-ice is again brought up in this paper, a subject on which there is so voluminous a literature that any attempt to add to it must have the support of the strongest reasons. It is, therefore, with some temerity that I attempt the description of a set of facts which appears to contain a key to some of the well-known problems of ice-action. Of all the phenomena of glacial deposits, perhaps the most puzzling are the occurrences of shelly drifts of marine origin in a great variety of circumstances, both as to height and as to composition. The great discussions of the past as to whether they indicated submergence, or merely an upthrust-action of the ice, can only be said to have been suspended and not concluded. The subject of this paper is a series of deposits on the Antarctic shores which point to an explanation of the origin of many of these shelly drifts and the peculiar circumstances in which they occur. In South Victoria Land we had the good fortune to see these shelly deposits at an early stage of their evolution, a stage now only possible in polar lands with a severe climate. The occurrence of raised marine muds, resting upon ice, was reported by the first Expedition that wintered in the Ross Sea, the British National Antarctic Expedition of 1901-1904. They were described by Mr. H. T. Ferrar, the geologist

Scottish National Antarctic Expedition. Report on the Scientific Results of the Voyage of the Scotia, during the Years 1902-4 . Vol. IV.,, Zoology. Parts II.-XX., Vertebrates. Edinburgh, 1915. Pp. 505. 4to. 62 pl. 31 text-figures and 2 maps.

<i>Scottish National Antarctic Expedition. Report on the Scientific Results of the Voyage of the Scotia, during the Years 1902-4</i> . Vol. IV.,, Zoology. Parts II.-XX., Vertebrates. Edinburgh, 1915. Pp. 505. 4to. 62 pl. 31 text-figures and 2 maps.

Societies and Academies

EDINBURGH. Royal Society, July 5.—Sir E. A. Schafer, vice-president, in the chair.—Sir William Turner: A contribution to the craniology of the people of Scotland: Part ii., prehistoric, descriptive, and ethnographical. Judging from the size and general plan of the skull of the prehistoric inhabitants of Scotland, he found nothing to show that these very remote ancestors were not people of great brain-power.-W. Evans: Mallo-phaga and Ixodidae, Ectoparasites of birds from the Scotia collections (Scottish National Antarctic Expedition). Interesting examples were recorded of the same species of parasite infesting closely allied species of birds.-Dr. J. R. Milne: Mathematical theory of the harmonic synthetiser: part ii. Nine years ago the author described an instrument for drawing the curve which is the sum of a number of simple harmonic curves. The apparatus makes use of Kelvin's summation wire and an approximate method of obtaining harmonic motions which was rejected by him as insufficiently accurate. It was shown, however, in the previous paper that if the various parts be properly proportioned, the error can be made very small. The more complete mathematical discussion in the present paper shows how it may be reduced to negligible dimensions.-Prof. C. R. Marshall and Miss Elizabeth Gilchrist: The interaction of methylene iodide and silver nitrate.-James W. Munro: The structure and life-history of Bracon hylobii, a study in parasitism. The Hylobius abietis was the most dangerous insect enemy to forestry in Scotland. One way of fighting it was by the breeding and setting free of a parasitic enemy. Such a parasite is Bracon hylobii.-Miss Augusta Lamont: The lateral sense organs of Elasmobranchs; the ampullary canals of the genus Raia.

IX.—Stalk-eyed Crustacea Malacostraca of the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition

As the Scotia was engaged in marine research throughout the whole of its long voyage out and home, it was only to be expected that Antarctic specimens would form but a small fraction of the result. In like manner, as several of the halting-places, such as the Cape of Good Hope and the Falkland Islands, had been visited by many keen naturalists on earlier occasions, it was quite likely that species of the group with which this report is concerned would have been in numerous instances already observed. Accordingly, out of some fifty species here discriminated, only six claim to be new, and not more than ten can be regarded as Antarctic or sub-Antarctic in their place of capture. In the vast extension, however, which marine zoology has for some time past been receiving, some retardation in the stream of discovery may not be unwelcome to the systematist. Familiar forms which would otherwise amply repay a thorough reinvestigation are apt to be thrust on one side, when striking novelties are for ever appealing to be introduced. This expedition, like others before it, affords fair evidence that the Macrura are both abundant and varied in great depths of the ocean. But only too often the frailty of their fabric leaves them in a tantalisingly mutilated condition when they reach the surface.

Report on the Scientific Results of the Voyage of the S. Y. "Scotia" during the Years 1902, 1903, and 1904, under the Leadership of William S. Bruce (Scottish National Antarctic Expedition). Vol. 4: Zoology. Parts 2-20: Vertebrates

Report on the Scientific Results of the Voyage of the S. Y. "Scotia" during the Years 1902, 1903, and 1904, under the Leadership of William S. Bruce (Scottish National Antarctic Expedition). Vol. 4: Zoology. Parts 2-20: Vertebrates

XIV.—On a New Species of Sclerocheilus, with a Revision of the Genus

The Polychæte family Scalibregmidæ comprises seven genera, the limits and interrelationships of which are, however, still imperfectly known. The present paper results from a detailed study of one of these genera, a new species of which is described, chiefly from a specimen collected in Scotia Bay, South Orkneys, and entrusted to me for examination by Dr W. S. Bruce.Description of the Specimen Collected in Scotia Bay, South Orkneys.: This specimen, the only Scalibregmid found by the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition, was dredged on a stony bottom in ten fathoms at Station 325, in Scotia Bay, South Orkneys (lat. 60° 43′ 42″ S.; long. 44° 38′ 33″ W.), in August 1903.The worm, which is yellowish brown in colour (in alcohol), is 19 mm. long. The anterior portion is broad; the maximum breadth, 3 mm., is reached about the level of the 10th segment; from this region the worm tapers gradually to the anal segment. The dorsal surface of the worm is strongly convex; the ventral surface is flattened, and there is a well-marked depression which extends along the mid-ventral line from the 2nd chætiferous segment almost to the anus.

XIII.—Rocks from Gough Island, South Atlantic (collected by the Scottish National AntarcticExpedition, 1902–1904)

The specimens described in this paper were collected by Dr J. H. Harvey Pirie, B.Sc, M.B., geologist to the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition, during a short visit paid to Gough Island on the homeward voyage of the Scotia from the Antarctic seas in 1904. The island is not often visited, and the only previous account of the rocks is by Professor L. V. Pirsson, who described a series of beach pebbles collected by the captain of a whaling vessel. Among those Professor Pirsson noted two varieties of basalt, trachytic tuffs, and a trachytic obsidian carrying olivine, and shown by chemical analysis to be of phonolitoid type.With the exception of a small fragment of limestone, the rocks in the Scotia collection are all igneous. They were obtained in the neighbourhood of the usual landing-place, the mouth of a small glen on the eastward side of the island. They include soda trachytes, trachydolerites, basalts, an essexite, and tuffs.

XV.—Atlantic Sponges collected by the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition

The sponges in the following report were collected in the North and South Atlantic during the Scotia's voyages to and from the Antarctic regions in the years 1902–1904.All the sponges in the collection were obtained off the south-west coast of Cape Colony, with the exception of five well-known species which were taken off St Helena, the Cape Verde Islands, and the Princesse Alice Bank. Only one specimen was dredged in deep water, namely, in 350 fathoms off the Princesse Alice Bank, while the remainder were taken between tide-marks to a depth of 30 fathoms.The collection contains thirty-five species, of which fifteen are described as new.To complete the list of sponges obtained by the Scotia in Atlantic waters, mention may be made here of one species which is not contained in this report. This species, Cladorhiza thomsoni, dredged in deep water between Gough Island and the Cape of Good Hope, has been described by Professor Topsent (24 and 25). It was taken at Station 468, 39° 48′ S., 2° 33′ E., depth 2770 fathoms.The five species above referred to, Leucandra crambessa, Aphrocallistes beatrix, Tethya lyncurium, Chondrosia plebeja and Chondrosia reniformis, call for no special remark. They have all been previously obtained in, or fairly near, the areas for which they are here recorded.

Societies and Academies

EDINBURGH. Royal Society, March 16.—Prof. James Geikie, president, in the chair.—Rev. T. R. R. Stebbing: Stalk-eyed Crustacea Malacostraca of the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition. Most of the fifty specimens described were collected by the Scotia at various stations during its voyage out and home, so that not more than ten could claim to be Antarctic or sub-Antarctic in their place of capture. Six new species were described, viz., Coryrhynchus algicola, Eupagurus modicellus, Gennadas kempi; Nauticarus brucei. Phye scotiae, P. rathbunae.—D. W. Steuart and Ingvar Jörgensen: Note on the atmospheric electrical potential gradient in industrial districts. The experiments were carried out in the neighbourhood of Leeds. The chief feature was the magnitude of the potential gradient under certain conditions.—J. B. Robertson: A chemical examination of the organic matter in oil-shales. Thirteen samples had been analysed. The carbon hydrogen ratio varied from 6 to 8, the lower ratio belonging to the shale yielding the larger amount of oil produced from a definite percentage of organic matter. The ratios were lower than that of ordinary bituminous coal. The organic matter, the main bulk of which was insoluble in organic solvents, was the product of the decomposition of vegetable substance (algæ, spores, etc.), similar in nature to what was found in peat and cannel coal.

National Antarctic Expedition, 1901–1904. Meteorology, Part 2. Comprising Daily Synchronous Charts, October 1, 1901, to March 31, 1904. Prepared in the Meteorological Office under the Superintendence of bf. W. Campbell Hepworth, C.B., R.D., Commander R.N.R, Marine Superintendent. London: published by the Royal Society, 1913. 4 to. 26 pp. and plates Price 21s

<i>National Antarctic Expedition, 1901–1904. Meteorology</i>, Part 2. <i>Comprising Daily Synchronous Charts, October 1, 1901, to March 31, 1904.</i> Prepared in the Meteorological Office under the Superintendence of bf. W. Campbell Hepworth, C.B., R.D., Commander R.N.R, Marine Superintendent. London: published by the Royal Society, 1913. 4 to. 26 pp. and plates Price 21s

VI.—The Anatomy of a New Species of Bathydoris, and the Affinities of the Genus: Scottish National Antarctic Expedition.

The genus Bathydoris was created by Bergh in 1884 in his Report on the Nudibranch Mollusca collected by the Challenger. In his account of the anatomy of the new genus Bergh draws attention to the anomalous combination of characters possessed by the animal, and gives it an annectent position between the Dorids and the Tritonids, but places it among the Dorids on account of the predominance of Dorid features. The single specimen of Bathydoris abyssorum was dredged off New South Wales in 2425 fathoms. A second specimen of this peculiar genus was obtained by the Danish Ingolf Expedition and described by Bergh in 1900. This specimen came from 1870 fathoms in Davis Strait, and resembled B. abyssorum, with specific variations. Thus Bathydoris came to be regarded as an isolated genus with the characters of a connecting link, and appropriately a denizen of deep water. Our anatomical knowledge of the animal is derived almost entirely from Bergh's accounts of the two species mentioned, and is moderately extensive, considering the rather imperfect state of preservation of the material and the fact that he was dependent on single specimens in each case.

XVIII.—The Chætognatha of the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition of 1902–1904

A considerable number of Chætognatha were collected on the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition of 1902-1904. Some two or three hundred tow-nettings were examined, and about ninety yielded some of these forms. Beside the tow-netting samples there were twelve tubes of these animals taken in the vertical net or the trawl.