In the article ‘Diverting Soviet rivers: some possible repercussions for the Arctic Ocean’ by Dr H. Cattle in the May 1985 issue (Polar Record 22(140); 485–98), the plates for Figures 3 and 4 are reversed; the map shown on p 491 should accompany the Figure 3 caption on p 490, and vice versa. In Table 3 the figure for standard deviation of the Yenisey mean annual river flow has been displaced to the left; the flow is 562 km3, the standard deviation 44.