Cryolite is a rare mineral which is only mined in Greenland and is one of the most important assets in- Greenland economy. It is grey-white and translucent, almost like ice when wet, a fluoride of sodium and aluminium with the chemical formula Na3AlF6. The only commercial source is at Ivigtut in south-west Greenland, whilst the only two other known occurrences—at Pikes Peak, Colorado, and Miass in the Urals—are both small and impure. Lately, however, the Russians have claimed that the geological structure of Kol'ski Poluostrov (Kola Peninsula) would indicate the likelihood of cryolite being found there, and there are also reports of a mine in active production in East Siberia on the Manchurian border.

A British Polar Exhibition, under the auspices of the Royal Geographical Society, was held at the Central Hall, Westminster, from July 2 to July 19.

The professional artist Edward Seago (1910–1974) travelled to the Antarctic Peninsula, the Falkland Islands, and South Georgia in the 1956/57 austral summer. Although firmly rooted in the English, and in particular the East Anglian, tradition of landscape painting, Seago was able to portray polar landscapes, which he had not previously experienced, with vigour and delight. He went to Antarctica with a firmly established skill in using oils to capture the essence of a landscape, and, despite being on or near the Antarctic Peninsula for only about three days, he produced about 18 oil paintings, predominantly of landscapes and icescapes. In addition, he painted at least a further 17 works of the Falkland Islands, South Georgia, the whaling industry, and icebergs in the Southern Ocean. Seago had an excellent memory and was able to ‘reproduce’ earlier works, an ability that has caused some confusion. Examples of these counterparts are discussed. A catalogue of his known Antarctic works is given.

Near the Poles, the geographical system of reference by meridians and parallels approaches limiting conditions, and the apparent motion of heavenly bodies is unfamiliar. Accepted routines of navigation break down, and it is therefore necessary to devise new methods for the use of aircraft in polar regions. In addition, the weakness of the magnetic field in these regions forces us to modify or supplement the ordinary method of steering by magnetic compass. It cannot be too much emphasised, however, that the overriding criteria by which any technique must be examined are those which are common to navigation in all latitudes, and which are imposed by the nature of the aircraft itself. They arise chiefly owing to the speed and instability of the machine, and to the conditions of physical and mental strain in which the aerial navigator must work. Techniques and instruments must survive the three-fold test, applicable to any latitude: “Is the manipulative process handy enough to be done accurately by a navigator, tired or under nervous tension?”, “Is it simple enough for him to avoid errors under conditions of stress or mild anoxia?”, and “Is it fast enough?”

Bernhard Hantzsch was a German zoologist and explorer, born in 1875, whose first work in Canada was in northernmost Labrador in 1906. He returned to the north in 1909 with the object of exploring the then unknown Foxe Basin coast of Baffin Island. His plan was to set off from Cumberland Sound and travel with Eskimos across Baffin Island by way of Nettilling Lake and the Koukdjuak River, follow the coast north and west to Fury and Hecla Strait, and then make his way to Pond Inlet. Unfortunately, the ship that was taking him to Kerketen sank in Cumberland Sound; although all aboard made their way safely to Blacklead Island, most of his supplies were lost. Nevertheless he set off, ill-equipped, in the spring of 1910 with a group of Eskimos. By the end of the year he had established winter quarters at the mouth of what is now 245 Sylvan called the Hantzsch River, with two families, Aggakdjuk, his wife Arnga and their children, and Ittusakdjuak and his wife Sirkinirk.

In 1946 the United States Weather Bureau and the Canadian Meteorological Service installed the first of the Joint Arctic Weather Stations at Resolute Bay. The network of satellite stations was extended into the Arctic archipelago in the following years on roughly a 275-mile spacing to Mould Bay, Isachsen, Eureka and Alert.

The need to record and report the distribution of floating ice has arisen where-ever ships have been required to sail regularly in ice-filled waters. Various systems have been developed to meet the needs of particular areas, but these have grown up largely independently of each other. Such systems are generally designed to fulfil either, or both, of two purposes. One is the immediate end of providing material for a synoptic ice map, which is the basis of help to ships in the form of statements of the present whereabouts of the ice or predictions of its movements for a short period ahead. The other is a longer-term end, such as ice probability study, which seeks to utilize past records over as many years as possible in order to ascertain, in general terms, the probability of access to a given place at a given time; a result of such a study may be, for example, an ice atlas, of which two, covering wide areas, have appeared since the Second World War. Another long-term end is use of the ice pattern as an index of climatic change. Both lines of ice study require detailed information on the state of the ice, but each puts it to a different use. The problem, then, consists of devising a means of recording on paper, either photographically, cartographically, by means of explanatory text, or in some form of code convenient for radio transmission, the relevant facts about the distribution and behaviour of an area of floating ice, and also of reporting these in comprehensible terms, first to a collecting centre, and then to the users.