This illustrated glossary of sea ice and associated terms is an abstract of a fuller illustrated glossary, also covering land ice terms, which the Institute has had in preparation for many years, and hopes to issue before long as a Special Publication. It is a development of an Admiralty glossary, published in 1953, with such modifications as seem to be required for international agreement.

In the early years of Soviet power, expeditions to the Barents and Kara Seas were organized, and this laid the foundations of navigation between the European part of the Soviet Union and the Siberian rivers Ob' and Yenisey. In the course of these voyages great quantities of goods were carried across the Arctic seas, which were to become important in the country's economy.

Can words freeze as soon as uttered, and thus become inaudible? Polar research does not confirm it, and even the layman may well suspect that there are serious scientific objections to such a notion, and to its corollary, which is that congealed words should become audible on thawing. Yet this idea, through the ages, has given rise to a series of literary anecdotes and allusions, all of them humorous or satirical in intention. It is interesting to speculate how the idea arose in the first place. Hyperbole, including deliberately facetious hyperbole, is always present in the popular imagination, which tends to seek vivid, graphic, and sometimes wildly improbable comparisons in order to make its point. The heat of hell, and the coldness of charity, are equally undemonstrable from the strictly scientific point of view, while the goodness of gold must be regarded as ethically unverifiable, however effective as alliteration. We must imagine that some early wit once said: “It's so cold in X that when you try to say something, your words freeze and fall to the ground.” As a matter of fact, something very similar was attributed by Plutarch to one Antiphanes. In a chapter of the Moralia entitled “How a man may become aware of his progress in virtue” we find this anecdote:

Antiphanes said humorously that in a certain city words congealed with the cold the moment they were spoken, and later, as they thawed out, people heard in the summer what they had said to one another in the winter; it was the same way, he asserted, with what was said by Plato to men still in their youth; not until long afterwards, if ever, did most of them come to perceive the meaning, when they had become old men.

From the time of its discovery until the latter years of the nineteenth century Antarctica remained a terra incognita to the geologist, but in the early years of this century the Falkland Islands Dependencies attracted some academic interest, particularly from geologists. Undoubtedly this was mainly due to the fact that the Dependencies occupy one of the more accessible parts of the Antarctic continent and also bear a close geological relationship to South America.

In the last issue of the Polar Record an impending readjustment of the constitution of the Scott Polar Research Institute was announced. This was formally approved by the University on 23 February 1957, and comes into force as from 1 January 1957. The following is the full text of the report of the General Board of the University:

The General Board beg leave to report to the University as follows:

1. The principle of the establishment of a Scott Polar Research Institute and the provision of temporary accommodation for it in the Sedgwick Museum of Geology were approved by Grace 4 of 26 November 1920 on recommendations contained in a Report, dated 11 November 1920, of the Council of the Senate on the proposed establishment and endowment of an institute for polar research as a memorial to Captain Scott. The essential features of the institute which the Council recommended for establishment were stated in the preamble of the Council's Report as including:

1. A comprehensive collection of all polar literature into a library.

Since January 1949 the Arctic Team of the Fisheries Laboratory, Lowestoft, has been carrying out fishery research from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Research vessel Ernest Holt, an Arctic-type trawler specially built and fitted out so that hydrographic and biological observations can be made on the Arctic fishing grounds throughout the year. At the time of writing the naturalists in the Arctic Team consist of Michael Graham (Leader); G. C. Trout and R. J. H. Beverton (Population studies); J. Corlett and P. T. Marshall (Plankton); Arthur Lee and H. W. Hill (Hydrography); R. W. Blacker (Benthos). I wish to thank my colleagues for allowing me to draw freely on their work which is in preparation for publication, and for contributing the illustrations to this article.

In 1954 and 1955 the author was stationed at Hope Bay in Graham Land, as one of the twelve men at Base D of the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey. During this time an investigation was carried out into the physiology of sledge dogs. This investigation was divided into two main parts: the first was a study of the sledging diet, and the second of the factors affecting the work output of sledge dogs.

On 1 November 1951 Norsel sailed from Göteborg on her third voyage to Maudheim; this time to evacuate the expedition. On board were the personnel and two aircraft of a Swedish Air Force unit. Air reconnaissance had been carried out in the expedition's first season by a British R.A.F. Flight. In the second season a Norwegian commercial flying unit had done some photography, and in the final season it was the turn of the Swedes to provide these services. In preparation for this the writer, who commanded the unit, had accompanied Norsel on her second voyage, and had thus been able to study the area, and discuss plans with members of the expedition.

The Instituto Antártico Argentino was created in 1951 and began its activities by establishing a permanent base in Marguerite Bay, which was named “Base General San Martin”. In January 1955 it built a second base, called “Base General Belgrano”, on the Filchner Ice Shelf (lat. 77° 58′ S., long. 38° 50′ W.). Since the southern summer of 1952–53 the Institute has regularly sent a party of about twenty-five scientists to carry out field work with the annual Argentine navy Antarctic expedition. On 26 January 1956 the Institute was transferred to the Ministerio de Marina as an autonomous scientific and technical organization, not a component of the navy, and with the object of studying the nature of the Antarctic. Shortly after, it established itself in an old residential building owned by the government, at calle Cerrito 1248, Buenos Aires.

In August 1946 John Tonkin, navigator at the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey station on Stonington Island in Marguerite Bay, Graham Land, was leading a team of dogs half a mile from the station. As the path was a well-trodden one he was not wearing skis. Four other men were in the party. He was walking close in front of the lead dog when suddenly he disappeared down a hidden crevasse. Fortunately it was a very narrow one and he stuck about 40 ft. down, jammed by the thickness of his body, and with his legs hanging free. Other men were called from the station and came to his rescue with rope, but no pulley block. First, ropes with loops on their ends were lowered, and Tonkin managed to put his arms through the loops, and so acquire some feeling of security. The narrowness of the crevasse meant that a rescuer had to be lowered spread-eagled with his weight taken in loops of rope clove-hitched around the instep. It also prevented the free use of an ice axe, and the process of chipping Tonkin free was carried out slowly with the ferrule and spike sawn off the end of an ice axe. Two hours after the accident Tonkin was hauled to the surface by means of the original ropes looped round his arms. The strain of his weight on the ropes damaged the nerves of his arms, and a partial paralysis resulted for several months.

Increased complexity in organisms narrows the range of body temperature within which effective function is found. The organism responds to this problem by developing both internal and external mechanisms for keeping a steady body temperature independent of the environment. However, there comes a point at which these protective devices break down; the study of the response to arctic conditions involves the study of these three aspects, namely, external protection, internal changes, and the nature of the failure to resist the cold. Bodily functions fail, as does the protective mechanism, from the outside inwards, the vital functions naturally being the last to fail. Recent advances in engineering, particularly developments in aviation, have tended to draw attention to the fact that the limits to arctic activities are usually set by the extent to which man can adapt himself rather than his machines. The adjustments made by people living in very cold regions include a whole number of changes in behaviour which can be grouped under the general heading of the techniques of arctic living. Such changes in behaviour are obviously of the first importance for success and survival, especially when directed to the provision of a satisfactory private climate by the use of special clothing and shelter. Adjustments of a rather different kind from these can also be found in human beings attempting to adapt to arctic surroundings, and it is these other changes in human beings that are being considered here—the physiological and psychological changes that help men to meet the challenge of a cold environment.

Normal insurance of hulls is not valid when vessels sail into certain waters where additional risks are incurred. These areas are exactly defined in a document produced by the Institute of London Underwriters known as the Institute Warranties, reproduced as Appendix 1. If a ship is required to sail in any of these waters, for instance Hudson Bay, or the Baltic Sea in winter time, suspension of the Warranty must be obtained from the underwriters by payment of additional premium to cover the additional risks involved. The nature of these risks is not specified, but clearly ice is a principal one in these two areas, and in some of the other areas.

The Arctic Institute of North America was established in 1945 in two small rooms in McGill University, with a staff consisting of Dr Lincoln Washburn and a secretary, who made up for the lack of equipment and facilities by abundant energy and enthusiasm. Since then the Institute's growth has been considerable, always in the direction of its three main objectives—to form a centre for reference information and study on the North American Arctic, to encourage arctic scientific research in any field, and to disseminate arctic information by means of a journal, other publications, and lectures.