The highest good that life can confer upon anyone is to see a piece of work, begun in a moment of inspiration, prepared on a wall-considered plan, and completed to perfection by one's own efforts, and on this rare and happy achievement we offer our heartiest congratulations to Professor Debenham.

In No. 29 of The Polar Record he has told the whole story of the inception, rise and progress of the Scott Polar Research Institute of the University of Cambridge. It is a prose saga of high ideals and great deeds modestly stated in the graceful flow of words of which he is a master.

Many of us had deplored the waste of effort in so many great polar expeditions, each undertaken afresh with scant help from the scattered original records of earlier work, each ending with its members dispersed and the accumulated data scattered once more; but it was Frank Debenham alone who formulated the remedy.

The R.A.F. North Polar Research Flights were made during the month of May 1945 by the four-engined aircraft Aries. In sixteen days these flights covered more than 24,000 miles, the greater part of which lay within the Arctic Circle. The more important objects of the expedition were to investigate the problems of navigation in high latitudes, to make a magnetic survey in the region of the North Magnetic Pole, to test the reliability of magnetic compasses in its vicinity, and finally to observe the effects of polar flying on aircrew.

The Aries was built as a standard Lancaster heavy bomber, identical with those aircraft which fought the battles of the Ruhr and Berlin. The aircraft was modified slightly for polar flying. The range was increased to about 5000 miles by fitting extra petrol tanks in the bomb bays. Extra speed was obtained by removing the camouflage paint and by streamlining the nose and tail. Since the three heavy gun turrets and armour plating were not required, room was found for a further petrol tank in the nose, and a second astrodome amidships. The latter was used for taking sextant readings. Additional space in the tail was welcomed for stowing the emergency equipment.

Exercise Musk-ox was no isolated adventure, but the culminating test of several years of wartime work. In it, vehicles, equipment, and techniques of training and of air-supply, secretly developed during the war, were given an open test to ascertain their usefulness in northern Canada. Because the public had not been aware of this secret work by the services, Exercise Musk-ox was hailed by them as a new idea, but it would not have been possible had not the equipment and methods all been ready and proven before tbe close of the war.

So great had been these wartime improvements that none of those men best acquainted with the north country and with older methods of transportation believed that the ground party had any chance of driving 2600 miles without roads across the Arctic and sub-Arctic in less than 2½ months. Neither was it generally realised that the military purposes had already been served and that this was no tactical exercise but a demonstration of the soundness of military development and an experiment in applying it to peaceful pursuits in the Canadian Arctic.

In July 1945, the Secretary of State for the Colonies appointed me leader of the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey for two years, an appointment which brought a prospect of a free existence in the wide open spaces as compared with routine office life. I soon found this prospect fading over the horizon. For months I was tied to an office, early and late, surrounded by scores of papers, insistent questioners and a ceaseless telephone bell. All this was necessary before the stores were ordered, packed and dispatched and the staff appointed.

In early 1945, having had no previous experience of dogs or dog-driving, I was given charge of twenty-five huskies at the Hope Bay base of the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey. These dogs were purchased in Labrador by Surg.-Cdr. E. W. Bingham, R.N., and Capt. N. B. Marshall in the autumn of 1944, and were transported to the Antarctic via England. Every man develops his own methods and personal preferences for animal management, and there is a welter of conflicting advice and testimony. In such circumstances it is best for the absolute novice to select the system of one acknowledged expert and adhere to it rigidly.

The Antartic continent has been in the limelight during the past year, and it is well known that several countries are claiming parts of the area, which unfortunately overlap. Possessions belonging to Great Britain, but at present disputed, are all islands and territories lying between longitudes 20°and 50° W., south of latitudes 58° S. The islands enclosed by these boundaries are Dependencies of the Falkland Islands consisting of many islands and part the Antartic Continent. South Georgia, the South Orkney Islands, Graham Land, the South Shetland Islands, the South Sandwich Islands, Alexander I Land and part of Coats Land lie within this area, which amounts in all to about three million square miles, and the territories, portions of which are as yet unexplored, extend down to the South Pole. Great Britain permanently occupies the Dependencies, carrying on a whaling industry and scientific research. In addition the Argentine Government has a meteorological station on Laurie Island in the South Orkneys. This was established in 1904 at the request of Dr W. S. Bruce, leader of the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition, who had built the station two years earlier. Since 1904 it has been continually manned by meteorologists sent out each year from Argentina. The original party had a post office, the first to appear in Antarctica. This and the more recent ones set up under British administration are marked on the accompanying map. Owing to the impermanence of the population of this part of the world they are naturally not all open continuously.

The Grímsvötn area in the Western part of Vatnajökull and the Katla area in the south-eastern part of Mýrdalsjökull in southern Iceland are of special interest because of active subglacial vulcanism. In recent times eruptions have occured periodically in Grímsvötn at intervals of about ten years, the latest taking place in 1922 and 1934. In Mýrdalsjökull, Katla has etupted twice every century since 1580, the latest eruption occurring in 1918. Simultaneously, with the first phase of the eruptions, great quantities of water, in amounts approaching 10 cu.km., are liberated from the glaciers. This phenomenon is named jökulhlaup in Iceland. In the period between eruptions the craters are covered by the glacier, and little evidence of vulcanism can be seen. Since 1934 a continuous observation of the Grimsvotn area has been carried out, and since 1943 the Katla area has been included in the programme. Below is given a much abbreviated historical summary of what observations have been made and by whom: