In order to safeguard the stock of whales in northern seas, special regulations for Svalbard have been proposed by the Norwegian Government. These regulations forbid both Norwegian and foreign subjects to use a land station for the taking and treatment of whales in Svalbard and Jan Mayen. They follow the international agreements of 1937 and 1938 which provide for the closing of the Northern Hemisphere for pelagic baleen whaling and restriction of the activity of land stations to six months of the year.

Dog-driving methods are a subject on which no two people think alike, and whenever two or three men meet together in the Arctic, they form the basis for endless discussion and argument. We can remember many a good night's sleep lost when a visitor arrived apparently tired out, but with enough energy left to sit up all night arguing the relative merits of fan or centre trace, or something of that sort. For this reason we feel rather diffident in adding our opinions to those already published recently in The Polar Record. With regard to different equipment, harness, sledges and team formations—these are almost entirely a question of local conditions and, therefore, not really worth arguing about. For instance, in North-East Greenland, we used regularly fan, centre trace and tandem formations to suit differing snow conditions, etc., and each was, under the right conditions, definitely superior to the other two.

It is of course impracticable for the Discovery Committee to continue any further work at present with the Discovery II and William Scoresby, but although part of the scientific staff is now seconded to various forms of National Service, it has fortunately been found possible for those remaining to continue the scientific work in this country. While the ships were at work, the data and collections inevitably accumulated more quickly than they could be analysed and reported upon in full. There is, therefore, a very large body of material which would in any case require some years to be adequately dealt with. In the meantime the Committee's organisation is being kept intact, and it is expected that publication of the Discovery Reports will continue. Log books and other original records were removed from London at the outbreak of war and placed in safety in the cellars of the Scott Polar Research Institute.

During the last ten years there has been great activity in the sector of the Antarctic which lies south of the Indian Ocean. The work of various expeditions has sometimes been simultaneous, and owing to the fact that the areas visited have overlapped, more than one set of names have been published for the same features. An important advance towards the sorting out of the resulting confusion has been made by the Royal Geographical Society's new map entitled “The Course of Antarctic Exploration between Longitudes 20° W. and 110° E.” (Geographical Journal, xciv, No. 3, 1939, text pp. 204–8).