Vertical freezing of clayey suspensions contaminated by heavy metals was conducted. A small unidirectional thermal gradient applied to a sample placed in a parallelopipedic cell led to the low-rate propagation of an upward freezing front. During this propagation, segregation of salts occurred and the non-solidified phase ahead of the freezing front became enriched with metallic salts. Moreover, some of the non-miscible particles in suspension were repelled by the freezing front. Therefore, the solidified phase became poorer with metallic pollutants bound to such nonmiscible particles as clayey colloids or complexes. Thus, artificial cooling was able to purify a suspension contaminated by heavy metals that exist in various chemical forms. This paper presents results for different experimental conditions and physico-chemical parameters such as the pH and the ratio between the concentrations of metallic cations and clay particles. The influence of these physico-chemical parameters on the speciations of lead and on the efficiency of this method is discussed. These freezing tests carried out on polluted soils should succeed in their remediation. This new method is called ‘cryoremediation’.

In August 1991 the authors organized a field seminar on visual anthropology in the village of Kazym in northwestern Siberia. The intention was to help establish the practice of visual ethnography among a small group of native Siberians interested in actively promoting their culture. (Visual anthropology and visual ethnography are terms used to describe the use of film, video, or photography to reveal a society's cultural characteristics either to itself or to other societies.) Members of the Association forUgrian Salvation, a regional native group, had shown an interest in using video ethnography to extend the awareness of Khant culture and to encourage its preservation and revitalization i n the context of its emergence from mainstream Soviet society. Its original intention to provide a record for scholars and for use by Khant teachers in the regional schools had expanded to include television broadcasting of native programs in the Khanty viewing area. The program proved to be a practical way to enhance local participation in creating visual and written ethnographic records for research, archival, and educational purposes.

We regret that, in A. R. Buchan's recent article on SS Windward (Polar Record 24 (150): 213–22), Fig. 6 was wrongly captioned: the picture shows Jackon's sledge party, not Peary's. The reference to Fig. 6 at the bottom of p. 220 should be deleted, and references to Fig. 8 on pp 220 and 221 should be altered to Fig. 7. These were editorial errors, not the author's. Peary's daughter (p 221) was Marie, not Maria. We thank reader Eric Parkman Smith for his helpful comments.

It has long been suspected that James Weddell was born in Ostend, Belgium. However, no record of his birth was found during earlier searches in the Belgian archives. New searches in the parish registers of Ostend reveal that he was born in that town on 24 August 1787. The Weddell family is recorded in these archives under the name of Waddle, and it was as such that father Waddle signed documents. The parish registers of Ostend are in Latin and James's name was Latinised to Jacobus. The first record of James Weddell thus refers to Jacobus Waddle. In the parish registers are two other documents relating to the Weddell family: the birth of a brother Charles in 1782 and the death of another brother who was also called Jacobus in 1787. Therefore, the family lived in Ostend at least from 1782 to 1787.

Particulate matter collected at a single station in waters off the ice shelf of Prinsesse Astrid Kyst (70°S, 11°E), Antarctica, during the austral summer January–February 1986 was analyzed for organic content. Phytoplankton biomass represented by chlorophyll α varied from 0.051 to 3.1 μg dm-3. Values for constituent fractions ranged as follows: adenosine triphosphate 0.33 to 1.81 μg dm-3, particulate organic carbon 305 to 1850 μg dm-3, particulate carbohydrates 8 to 176 μg dm-3, particulate proteins 22 to 132 μg dm-3 and particulate lipids 8 to 209 μg dm-3. Large variation in values suggested patchy distribution. The likely presence of degraded carbon argues in favour of an active microbial community in these waters

[Some months ago one of our staff, leafing through the Proceedings of the Fourth National Northern Development Conference held in Edmonton in November 1967, stumbled on a reference to an unknown skit on the First Franklin Expedition in a paper that Richard Glover read to the Conference (Glover, 1967, p 27). Further enquiries produced the manuscript we print here.