Systematic optical and radio measurements from ground stations, together with measurements from rockets and satellites, have led to a good general understanding of auroras. However one topic remains conjectural: whether or not there is audible auroral sound.

Several engineering schemes are now planned or are in various stages of completion to dam, divert, regulate, or otherwise control the flow of several major waterways in the Canadian sub-Arctic. This region, which contains many large river systems (Map 1), is viewed by a number of federal and provincial government departments as a source of reliable and relatively inexpensive electricity to satisfy the energy-deficient markets of southern Canada and northern United States. However, opposition to these hydroelectric schemes is being voiced across Canada by critics who view them as having or likely to have negative effects on the environment and on the native peoples who inhabit the region. This review examines some of the alleged benefits and costs of four of the most controversial and best publicized of these projects. The information has come from a variety of sources: published literature and press reports, unpublished government documents and consultants' reports, notes taken at public hearings in 1972 and 1973, discussions with government officials, consultants, and other investigators between 1969 and 1974, and research by the senior author between 1968 and 1973 on the effects of hydroelectric developments on the northern environment (Gill, 1971; 1972a, 1972b; 1973a, 1973b, 1973c, 1973d; 1974; Kellerhals and Gill, 1973).

The Victoria Valley system, Wright Valley and Taylor Valley, often referred to colloquially as the dry-valley area, together cover about 4 000 km2 in the Transantarctic Mountains west of McMurdo Sound (Fig 1) and constitute the core of the largest ice-free area in Antarctica. It is a cold desert area, with high winds, low temperatures, low precipitation, and a strong positive radiation balance (Bull, 1966).

Greenland, the world's largest island, stretches some 2 700 km from north to south and about 1 050 km from east to west. It has a total area of 2175 km2, five-sixths of which is covered by an ice sheet. About 40 000 Greenlanders and 7 000 Danes inhabit a coastal ice-free area of about 150 000 km2, most of which is in south-west Greenland. Since 1953, Greenland has been an integral part of the Kingdom of Denmark and is represented by two elected members of the Danish Parliament (Folketing), and it has its own local government. The country is administered from Denmark by the Ministry of Greenland (Ministeriet for Grønland) and, in Greenland, the Governor (Landshøvdingen) is the chief representative of the State.

In October 1834, The Suffolk Chronicle announced that “Mr. Webster of the Chanticleer is now practising surgery in this town” Earlier that year, he had achieved a little fame by publishing Narrative of a voyage to the Southern Atlantic Ocean in the years 1828, 29, 30, performed in H.M. Sloop Chanticleer, . . . from the private journal of W. H. B. Webster, surgeon of the sloop (London, Richard Bentley, 1834). This two-volume work sold fairly widely, and the Ipswich Public Library bought a copy at the time.