The public's knowledge of the fur trade in Canada is necessarily slight. The fur trade is conducted in remote districts; there is nothing sensational about it, and it is not much given to talking about itself. Consequently there are many misconceptions about its present state. Some probably imagine that it is still a matter of trapping at will in any district and always finding an abundance of fur. Others believe that the advance of civilisation and excessive trapping have almost entirely destroyed the animal population, and that furs are becoming dangerously scarce. The truth, as so often happens, lies midway between the two extremes, and this article will attempt briefly to explain the salient points of the situation to-day.

“Either spirits of wine, or some fatty substance, such as stearine of coco-nut oil, tallow or blubber” is the fuel described by McClintock as used on his sledge journeys of the last century. Since those days both the type of fuel and its precise method of use have gradually changed with increasing knowledge and experience. In the present instance it is intended to discuss the use of fuel only in so far as it concerns the unsupported sledge party which must attempt to remain as long in the field as is possible on the supplies that it can carry from the beginning. In such circumstances it has always been obvious that the aim must be to reduce the ration of food and fuel to the absolute minimum of weight. The most efficient fuel is clearly that which provides on combustion the greatest amount of heat per unit weight, though some compromise must be made between the greatest “efficiency” in this sense and questions of safety and convenience. For many years this compromise has resulted in the general use of pressure stoves (such as the Primus) burning liquid paraffin. There is still, however, controversy as to the precise method of use by the sledge party of the small amount of fuel that is carried.

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.

The extraction of oil from whales is a very ancient process, but no regular oil production existed until the Basques started the whaling industry in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. With their primitive equipment, they only made use of the blubber, the part of the whale richest in oil. The blubber was cut up into small pieces which were cooked in open iron cauldrons. This method was in use until the beginning of the present century, when less wasteful methods were introduced in order to utilise as much as possible of the carcass. Flesh, entrails and bones are now cooked in closed boilers under increased pressure and temperature, and since about 1925 a combined steam and mechanical treatment of the material, known as “apparatus cooking”, has resulted in still more efficient extraction.

In the last number of The Polar Record an account was given of the International Whaling Conference held in London in June 1938. The general procedure was described, and it was explained that the governments of several nations interested in whaling had signed a Protocol embodying certain amendments to the Agreement of 1937.

It has been brought to our notice that in a recent paper (Astronomical Longitude and Azimuth Observations, Monthly Notices of tlie Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 97, No. 7, 1937, p. 489) Professor Nørlund, the Director of the Danish Geodetic Survey, made the following remarks about the supposed westward drift of Greenland:

“We know that Wegener considered that his hypothesis of the displacement of the continents had been supported by longitude determinations in Greenland, and from them he calculated that Greenland is moving westwards about 2O.metres a year. But the old observations used by Wegener were carried out with primitive instruments and he overrated their exactitude. In 1927 and 1936 the Danish Geodetic Survey carried out longitude determinations at Qôrnoq on the west coast of Greenland with a first class transit instrument, both times on the same pillar. Practically speaking the two measurements gave the same result. It is most likely that the deviations of the old measurements from the new ones are the result of observational errors.”

This Atlas is of interest to polar travellers since Soviet territory covers such a large section of the Arctic regions. We accordingly find that nearly every map of the territory goes well into the Arctic Circle. The two special pages of circumpolar maps are well printed and follow the usual convention for showing routes of expeditions. Insets on the Arctic sheet give a valuable map of Severnaya Zemlya with relief and soundings; there are also insets of parts of Novaya Zemlya, while weather charts and ice-drift charts complete the page.