Do you know why ‘Right’ Whales are called Right?
It is because they fulfilled the economic necessities of whalers in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
Dundee for example, had flourished for years as one of Britain’s most important whaling ports. The port was one of many dependant on whaling. By the late 1800s the city had gone into a precipitous decline as supplies of whales from the North Atlantic practically run dry. New venues were needed to restore the prosperity of the city.
Sir James Clark Ross had led a famous expedition south in the 1840s and had reported many ‘Right’ whales in the Antarctic region. In an attempt to revitalise the industry, expeditions to the south were organised and
‘Right’whales were the target. The whales are about 50 feet long, move relatively slowly and, because of their blubber content, float on the surface of the sea when killed (this was an important aspect in the 1890s, because the whaleboats did not have equipment adapted to haul the massive creatures to the surface should they sink).The whales had (and have), enormous heads with baleen plates in their jaws – these plates are flexible filters of up to three meters, which, at that time were hugely saught after for fashion items such as umbrella spokes and womens’ corset stays. In addittion the blubber was rendered down for oil, the bones ground up and the meat eaten
A single whale could command an enormous price — two to three thousand pounds.
The near extinction of whales in the 1900s coupled with the cruelty of their slaughter galvanised the international community into Agreements to protect the creatures. As I have written before, the agreements are imperfectly adhered to by some countries, who hunt for ‘scientific purposes’.
But the whales survive. There was a lovely picture in ‘The Times’ the other day of a southern right whale joining in the fun, as a surfer road a wave in Hermanus near Capetown.
‘Right’ Whales
1 MaySpitsbergen
10 AprI am going to visit Spitsbergen this summer – for two reasons; firstly, I understand it is memorable and beautiful place to visit and secondly, because William Speirs Bruce spent so much of his time between 1907 aid his death in 1921, hoping and planning to promote a prospecting company on the island. I am writing a book about Bruce.
Until relatively recently I would have been pushed to locate Spitsbergen accurately but I now know it is the largest island of the Svalbard Archipelago at 70°N, 13ºE, lying north of Norway. It is the only permanently populated island of the archipelago. It was a whaling centre in the 17/18th century and at the end of the 19th century, coal mining was started and with this several permanent communities sprung up.
For Bruce, Spitsbergen became a story of faith, hope … and ultimately disappointment. He visited the area with Prince Albert of Monaco, a distinguished oceanographer in 1898 and 1899. On these visits he noted oil, coal and gypsum. He revisited the archipelago in the early 1900s to map and survey Prince Charles Foreland, an island to the west of Spitsbergen (named after the Prince of Wales who would become Charles1) and again he found coal in tertiary measures and some indication of iron. On his return, he and a colleague established a private prospecting mineral company in July 1908. This was called the Scottish Spitsbergen Syndicate.
He was confident that mining companies could succeed in the icy archipelago for several reasons: 1) the west coast remains open to shipping for four months each year (June to September), as it benefits from south-westerly winds from the North Atlantic Drift.
2) Harbours on the west coast were in deep fjords close to the mining areas. 3) Although the transport of minerals would be seasonal, mining could continue throughout the year and the minerals stockpiled. 4) The permafrost ground would not need as much roof support as is needed in warmer areas
and, 5) (most importantly), in international law Spitsbergen was classified as Terra Nullius –anyone could stake a claim merely by staking out a plot and registering the claim with their government—no purchase price, no taxes. no harbour dues.
£4,000 was raised through the Syndicate’s sale of shares and Bruce led an expedition to make a detailed survey in the summer of 1909. The syndicate laid claims to Prince Charles Foreland, some large areas of Spitsbergen and another island Barents Island. The first expedition seemed successful in terms of analysis of the minerals brought back and Bruce dreamed of a successful commercial venture. But the expedition had swallowed most of the Syndicated financial reserves and these were never adequately renewed – Bruce failed to convince backers that Spitsbergen mining would be a commercial success
The Syndicate absorbed much of Bruce’s time and energy. Over the years he was to be in almost daily correspondence about his prospecting company with the Secretary of the Syndicate, the national press, and in later years, the Foreign Office (he petitioned for Spitsbergen to be annexed by the British to circumvent the threat of foreign occupation. Winston Churchill refused to consider this).
Bruce went to Spitsbergen again in 1912 and 1914 but the outbreak of war prevented further development, After World War 1, in spite of vigorous lobbying to the British Government, the ‘Spitsbergen Treaty’ was signed during the Versailles Treaty Agreement of 1919. Sovereignty of Spitsbergen was given to Norway.
In 1919 the old syndicate was replaced by a larger, better-financed company. By now, Bruce was fixing his main hopes on the discovery of oil, but two scientific expeditions in 1919 and 1920, failed to produce evidence of its presence, though new deposits of coal and iron ore were found. The expeditions again used up most of the companie’s available capital and by this time Bruce was too ill to continue his involvement with the Syndicate. He died in 1921
The company continued to exist, but it failed to maintain its (much reduced) claims. Also, in the 1920s the price of coal dropped significantly. The company was liquidated in 1953.
The Syndicate is a sad story of dogged determination, endless work, financial worry, unsatisfactory communication with the Government and ultimately failure. Bruce had his successes but the development of the Scottish Spitsbergen Syndicate is not one of them.
WILLIAM SPEIRS BRUCE
25 MarI have spent a considerable amount of time in the past few years researching the life of William Speirs Bruce Polar, the naturalist and explorer of the late 1800s and early1900s. There is an immense (overwhelming), amount of information about him stored in various museums and libraries: The Royal Scottish Geographic Society, The National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh University Library, Glasgow Museum, The Scott Polar Research Institute, The Royal Geographic Society and more, yet hardly anyone has heard of Bruce, – even in Scotland where he lived and worked for thirty years.
In the late 1800s it was uncertain whether Antarctica actually existed – were the sightings that had been made of land in the region simply islands or part of the mythical continent? Bruce’s scientific findings on his original visit (as a junior naturalist and doctor in 1892) did much to stimulate ongoing interest in an area. His own expedition, the Scotia expedition really opened up the region for the first time. On Scotia he organised hundreds of ‘stations’ where, sometimes with great difficulty, scientists collected a vast amount of data about the ocean. For each station the ship was halted and sea depth, sea characteristics, trawl findings, drag net findings and comprehensive meteorological data was collected over a distance of hundreds and hundreds of miles. In addition the scientists studied the animals; fishes seals whales birds – and the expedition discovered land (Coats Land), which changed what was understood about the geography of the Weddell Sea. It was on this expedition that a meteorological station and magnetic observatory were set up in the South Orkneys. These stations continue today.
In addition he added much to knowledge about Spitsbergen and surrounding islands in the Arctic
So why is he so little remembered? He knew the answer himself. His expeditions were scientific, no deaths no dramas, no financial support from big, publicity blazing newspapers. He wrote that the public wanted ‘narratives bristling with hairbreadth escapes, and thrilling adventures’. On one occasion, when he was invited to address a SCIRNTIFIC society, the secretary wrote to give his opinion that possibly one the hardest athletic feats to be achieved, was to get to the North or South Pole. He (the secretary) added that ‘it would be quite suitable if one of our university athletic clubs would take up this piece of work. No greater fame could accrue to such a club than to record that they were the winners of the Polar Blue Ribbon. I should quite well like to see the athletic club of one of our universities in Scotland victorious in this regard’
If the Secretary of a scientific society could write this =what hope with the general public?
Was he an Antarctic Hero? A hero is defined as a person admired for their courage,
outstanding achievements or noble qualities, I don’t think he was noble, he did what he was driven to do, nothing could, or would stop him, but in terms of outstanding achievements, and his grit, courage, doggedness to keep going in spite of all set backs, I think he qualifies..
SOME THOUGHTS ON EVOLUTION AND SOULS
1 MarThroughout his life Edward Wilson had an overwhelming conviction of the importance of faith. He believed in an all-powerful God at a time when the entrenched precepts of the church were being challenged. Debates raged about whether everything, mouse to man, plants to stars, were created at the same time (as taught by the church), or whether man was not created separately by God’s authority, but had evolved from lower forms of life over millions of years. Darwin, in the Origin of Species (1859), suggested that man (and other species), had not been created separately, but had evolved by random variation and by adaptation to their natural environments. Darwin called this process ‘natural selection’, a suggestion that confronted the supporters of Creationism and a suggestion that could shake the foundations of society in Victorian England.
But there is no suggestion that an appreciation that species could modify and adapt over time ever shook Wilson’s belief in an all-powerful God. He adapted Darwin’s belief into his personal creed, writing that God had originated life in a simple form and that this form altered and developed into its designated role. He believed that God is in everything: stones, trees, humans, animals, He was certainly helped, in a minor way, in his understanding of adaptation by his observations of his mother’s experiments with hens. Mrs Wilson (unexpectedly for a Victorian housewife), had published a book The ABC Poultry Book, in which she noted that hens could be adapted to develop new and desirable characteristics in a few generations, by being bred with those animals that already showed those characteristics. Conversely unwanted traits could be bred out.
Wilson believed that the ‘essence’, or soul, of an individual would survive after death, although invisible. But what is a soul? Does a physical body possess an immaterial soul? I find it virtually impossible to decide what a soul is, or indeed when its presence was first considered? Could it be a mutation that emerged at some stage during natural selection? Arguments for and against an immortal ‘essence’ go back thousands of years. Greek thinkers held conflicting beliefs; for example Plato, the precursor of religious philosophers such as Descartes, Pascal during the enlightenment, and John Hick and Keith Ward today, suggested that the soul is immaterial and eternal, imprisoned temporarily in the body and living after death. But philosophers throughout the centuries have disagreed. Aristotle considered that the soul and the body were interlinked – one goes with the other- (he unexpectedly illustrated his idea by describing an axe; the axe being the body (wood/metal etc) and the soul its function, As I understand it, the argument was that if a soul is engaged in pure though, it cannot exist without a brain, since without a brain there can be no rational thought.. In the last century Bertrand Russell wrote that it is unlikely that a human being could survive after death because the brain dissolves at death and with death the mind /brain association dissolves also. Aristotle is the precursor of physicalists such as da Vinci and in this century the evolutionary biologist and atheist, Richard Dawkins
So Wilson’s belief in the essence of a human being surviving (possibly as an astral body living in a parallel dimension) after death, has been challenged regularly, though he might have agreed with Genesis (2.7), that God did not make a body and put a soul into it like a letter into an envelope of dust, but rather he formed man’s body from dust, then, by breathing divine breath into it, he made the body of dust live i.e. the dust did not embody a soul but became a soul, a whole creature.
One of the questions that fascinate me is whether animals have souls. I imagine Wilson thought they do from his comments about God being in everything, but here again opinion is divided. The ancient Greeks were for and against. Pythagoras urged respect for animals because he believed humans and non-humans had the same kind of soul, one spirit pervades the universe and makes humans at one with animals, Conversely Aristotle argued that non- human animals had no interests of their own and ranked far below humans in the Great Chain of Being, because of their alleged irrationality and moral inequality, plants are created for the sake of animals and animals for the sake of man, He argued that humans were the masters in the hierarchical structure because of their rational powers.
Traditional Christianity seems to have agreed with Aristotle about souls. Saint Augustine argued that only humans were made in the image of God, but that humans had a responsibility for animal welfare. Saint Francis had a love of animals as did Martin Luther but Luther was not clear whether animals have souls. Traditional Christian teaching suggests that humankind is made in God’s image and has domain over fish, birds, cattle and animals -no mention of souls. Thomas Aquinas argued that humans should be charitable to animals (but only in so far as to make sure that animals cruel habits don’t carry over to human treatment of other humans or cause financial loss to the animal’s owner!) Modern Christianity teaches that only humans are made in the image of God, animals do not have souls; Humans have been given control over animals. The Church of England preaches that the world is a precious gift from God.
Basically, since the presence of a soul cannot be proved, neither can its absence. This goes for animals as well as humans. It seems therefore, that the age-old question remains unanswered – just WHY are we here? Wilson, like all people of faith was fortunate, in at the end of his life, he believed he was leaving this life for a better one, His final note to his wife, as he lay dying in the icy Antarctic, finished, ‘All is well’.
.
THE POLAR MEDAL
3 FebThe medal is awarded by the Queen. It was known first as the Arctic Medal, which was issued in 1857 and awarded to, amongst others, the expedition trying to discover the fate of Sir John Franklin and his crew, lost in 1847 whilst trying to discover the North West Passage. The Polar Medal was introduced in 1904 in recognition of the achievements of Scott’s Discovery expedition to Antarctica. It was awarded to members of the Discovery crew, also, I understand, to the crews of both rescue ships the Terra Nova and the Morning. A few years later members of Shackleton’s expeditions (1907-09 and 1914-1916) were honoured also.
The medal is given to citizens of the United Kingdome and Northern Ireland who have made significant contributions to knowledge in the Polar Regions or those who have given outstanding support in the acquisition of this knowledge and the objectives of polar exploration. Both groups have to have had experience of the hazards and rigours of the Polar environment.
The Arctic Club is delighted that its honorary secretary has been awarded the 2016 Polar Medal. Seven people have been awarded the medal this year ‘for outstanding achievement and service to the United Kingdom in the field of polar research’ with three of these related to Arctic work’.
As you know I am writing about William Speirs Bruce who led the major (Scottish) expedition, the Scotia expedition, to the Weddell Sea in 1902. After the expedition Bruce expected that he would get London-based recognition for his scientists and officers, but none received the Polar Medal. Bruce considered this a tremendous slight to himself and his crew and battled for years for the honour. He was convinced that Sir Clements Markham, the powerful President of the Royal Geographical Society and not a man to be crossed, influenced the decision. Sir Clements was the father of the Discovery expedition. He thought (and wrote) that he considered that Bruce had diverted monies that should have gone to Discovery to the coffers of the Scotia. This fundamental disagreement left Bruce with a lifelong distrust of Sir Clements and a conviction that the powerful president had effectively prevented the award.
Appeals by the Government to convince the Palace that the award should be granted were rebuffed. But recent evidence suggests that Bruce’s suspicions were wrong. The refusal appears to have been neither due to doubts as to Bruce’s scientific achievements, nor to Sir Clement’s malign influence, but because the Scotia expedition had been financed in Scotland and did not require government monies nor Admiralty rescue i.e. it had not had financial support out of Scotland (one of the ironies of this decision is that Shackleton’s Nimrod expedition did not have London-based financial support either). King Edward VII refused the award, his son George V was not prepared to overturn his father’s decision, a reason given that to honour Bruce’s expedition would set a precedent by widening the scope of the medal. A more recent application also failed.
Bruce considered, until his dying day, that Sir Clements had caused an estrangement between him and the Royal Geographical Society after the Scotia Expedition
SHACKLETON ACROSS SOUTH GEORGIA
13 JanI am giving a number of talks on’ Shackleton’s Life and Times’ this year. He is of particular interest now because; a hundred years ago he was still trapped in the icy grip of the Weddell Sea – no hope of any communication or help in those days.
His third expedition, the ‘Trans Antarctic’ expedition is an heroic story, but when I come to the final section, the crossing of South Georgia, I tend to keep it brief: The audience has, after all by then, gone through his early life, the ‘Discovery’ and ‘Nimrod’ Expeditions, plus five sections of the Job’s Trials that was the ‘Trans Antarctic’ expedition.
But the crossing of South Georgia is an epic story in itself. Having arrived at South Georgia in the adapted whaler The James Caird’ after a voyage that Shackleton feared might end in disaster, the six-men crew landed in King Haakon Bay through a narrow gap in a line of reefs, a gap ‘like blackened teeth’, so narrow that they had to ship their oars to get through. But they landed on the uninhabited side of the island; the whaling station in Stromness was some 26 miles away. The James Caird could not sail around the island safely. so a journey had to be made on foot across an utterly unknown and forbidding series of mountains and glaciers. Shackleton picked two of his five companions: Tom Crean and Frank Worsley to make the journey with him.
Shackleton wrote later: ‘I know that over that long and racking march of 36 hours over the unnamed mountains and glaciers of South Georgia, it seemed to me we were four men not three’ – they were being looked after by an unknown being, a concept taken up by T.S.Eliot in The Waste Land.
The three started out early on 19 May 1916 moving by the light of the moon. The only one with mountain experience was Worsley. Each man carried a three- day food supply in his sock. They took a primus stove plus oil, a pot, matches, a compass, a chronometer, a rope, an adze and pieces of wood from the James Caird to use as walking sticks. Soon after starting they were in fog. They roped themselves together; Worsley the navigator came last, shouting directions.
As the morning advanced they found they had crossed the island at its narrowest point, but from their vantage point the mountains dropped precipitously ahead of them and they were forced backwards. Throughout the day impassable ridges stopped their progress. They were fatigued and frostbitten.
The next stage seems to me to be almost the most dispiriting. They arrived at a place where there were five craggy peaks ahead, blunt fingers reaching into the sky. They could not find a descent pathway from the first two gaps and had to go back. Each ascent was steeper than the previous one. The third (particularly exhausting), took them to 5.000 feet. Finally, at the most northern of the four gaps they looked onto a precipice that dropped 300 feet before disappearing into the mist (or eternity).
What to do? Although Shackleton was said to be a careful and cautious leader generally, he felt they had no choice; they had nothing to loose with twenty-five men depending on them. He consulted his companions. ‘Are you willing to take a risk’? They inched down the precipitous cliff, cutting footholds with the adze, until they arrived at a snowy slope with no visible bottom. With fantastic daring the three sat, one behind the other (as if on a toboggan) and took off. They seemed to shoot into space. They shouted with excitement as they slid down 900 feet in minutes. Incredibly the slope ended leveled out and ended in a bank of snow. They had made it!
But still the trial was not ended and the men were exhausted. Shackleton allowed Crean and Worsley to sleep for five minutes (keeping awake himself by an iron will) and woke them saying they had rested for half an hour. The three had to pass over yet another ridge to get down to the coast. They struggled on and by dawn of the second day they reached a gap from which they could both see Stromness and hear the 6.30 am whistle that woke the men in the station. At 7 am they heard it again. This was their first evidence of human habitation since December 1914.
Still the problems were not over. The three then had to descend to the station carefully along the banks of and in, an icy stream, then lower themselves by rope down a thirty foot waterfall. They waded through the water before finally staggering towards the station. They were filthy, tattered, with wild hair and beards (Worsley safety-pinned his clothes together so as not to give offence). They carried the logbook the adze and the cooker, lasting memorials of their ordeal.
At the station they were seen first by two boys who, reasonably, fled. When the manager came he said ‘Well’? ‘Don’t you know me said Shackleton’? I know your voice came the doubtful reply. ‘My name is Shackleton’.
Some of the station men wept.
Some say that Shackleton’s third Antarctic expedition should never have been made. Differing views are held, but for courage, endurance and leadership in adversity it is difficult to imagine anyone more capable of giving hope, inspiring admiration and instilling confidence.
ARCTIC CLUB MEETING IN EDINBURGH
27 DecI attended the annual dinner/meeting of the Arctic Club recently. This was held in Edinburgh and was enjoyable and successful.
The Chief Executive of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, Mike Robinson, gave a talk on Polar Heroes, Young enthusiasts who had received awards from the society made presentations. Motivational speakers who have encouraged, enthused and trained school children for Arctic expeditions, showed how the experience has increased the young peoples’ confidence and abilities to a degree that they would have thought impossible previously. I gave a short version of William Speirs Bruce’s life.
I was particularly interested on Mike’s comments about Nansen. I learnt, really for the first time, about the magnitude of Nansen’s achievements. I had obviously heard of Nansen’s attempt at the North Pole and had come across him in relation to his meetings with Bruce. When Bruce joined the Jackson Harmsworth Expedition, he was amazed to find Nansen (who had been feared lost on his attempt to reach the North Pole), in Franz- Joseph land. Nansen had turned south at 86° N and was journeying to Spitsbergen via Franz Joseph Land. This was a wonderful meeting for Bruce and the two remained friends—when Bruce was feared lost himself on an expedition to Spitsbergen in 1909, Nansen, who was visiting the island with his son, offered to help to search for him.
But exploration was only part of the Nansen ‘oeuvre’. He studied zoology in Christiania (Oslo). He made scientific studies on Arctic zoology and found that sea ice forms on the surface of the water rather than below. He worked as curator in the zoological department of the Bergen Museum working for years on neuro anatomy. He was the first to cross Greenland. He made this awful crossing from the uninhabited east coast to the populated west coast (with no possibility of retreating to a safe base).
The ‘Fram’ expedition towards the North Pole began in 1893. The book that Nansen wrote on the experiences was an instant success and gave him financial security. As an authority on Polar exploration he was consulted by many explorers including Robert Falcon Scott before his 1901-4 ‘Discovery’ expedition (Nansen advised dogs for transport, and said the dogs should be fed on stockfish).
He became a diplomat. Sweden and Norway were united under a common monarch until 1905 when Norway left the union. Nansen published a series of newspaper articles supporting the separatist argument and presented the Norwegian case internationally.
In the 1914-18 war, Norway was neutral, but experienced severe food shortages because many prewar international trade arrangements were lost. This worsened when the United States entered the war and imposed further trade restrictions. Nansen’s mission to the States secured food and other supplies in return for rationing. After the war he became president of the Norwegian League of Nations Society and by persistent advocacy, ensured that Norway became a full member of the League of Nations.
To me, one of his most influential and imaginative advances related to his work of repatriation of the hundreds of thousands of prisoners of war, stranded in by the war in various parts of the world, far from home. Nansen wrote that never in his life had he been brought into contact with such a formidable amount of suffering. But by 1920 over 400,000 prisoners had been repatriated to 30 different countries helped by his efforts. In 1921 he worked on the repatriation of 2,000,000 Russian refugees displaced by the Russian Revolution. Since a major problem was that these people had no documents to confirm their identity or nationality, Nansen produced a document “the Nansen Passport”. This provided a form of identity that was accepted eventually by more that 50 countries. Countless numbers benefited including luminaries such as Marc Chagall, Ivor Stravinsky, and Anna Pavlova.
Nansen was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1922 for his work for prisoners of war, the Russian Refugees and the refugees in Asia Minor.
A fantastic life!
THE BEN NEVIS OBSERVATORY & WILLIAM BRUCE
9 DecI read a piece recently about conditions on the top of Ben Nevis, horrible– deep snow, fog.
Just over 100 years ago there was a meteorological station on the summit of Ben Nevis. This was a wonderful, progressive concept. Meteorologists wanted to understand weather systems better in order to be able to improve forecasting. The observatory was opened in 1883, funded mostly by private donors (supposedly including Queen Victoria) and it worked in synchrony with a second station at Fort William which provided a continuous record for comparison with records taken from the summit. Temperature comparisons showed that the average fall in temperature between Fort William and the summit was 8.5°C and that the mean annual temperature was -0.3°C at the summit and 8.4°C at the low level observatory. The Fort William station was manned by the 25-year-old Robert Mossman, who was to be a long-term associate and friend of William Speirs Bruce
Before the summit building was constructed, a local man, Clement Wragge climbed the peak daily to make meteorological observations in the summer of 1881, getting up at 4.30 each morning to do so. His wife made the simultaneous observations at Fort William. Wragge was not appointed as Superintendent when the observatory opened which must have riled him considerably, the unanimous choice for Superintendent was Robert Traill Omond an expert meteorologist. Omond was succeeded by Angus Rankin who had been an assistant to Wragg. Both Omond and Rankin were to be long term associates of Bruce also.
Bruce started his apprenticeship for his ‘Scotia’ adventure when he joined the summit observatory as Rankin’s assistant in 1895. He had studied medicine in Edinburgh without much enthusiasm until he was offered a position as surgeon/ naturalist on a whaling expedition to the Antarctic. This experience convinced him of the benefits of a purely scientific expedition to Antarctica and on his return, he gave up medical studies to become a full-time naturalist. Ben Nevis gave him valuable training in meteorological work in all conditions – it could be dangerous to make observations when there was a southerly wind, the observatory was situated close to the cliffs on the north of Ben Nevis. In winter, snow tunnels had to be made to get to the instruments.
His association with Ben Nevis continued. When he led the ‘Scotia’ expedition to Antarctica he built a meteorology base and a base for magnetic observations on Laurie Island in the South Orkneys. He called the meteorological base Omond House after the first superintendent of Ben Nevis. His friend Robert Mossman (of Fort William) played an important part in both the ‘Scotia’ journey to the South Orkneys and the Laurie Island stations. Bruce was determined his scientific work should continue long term Neither the British Foreign Office not the Admiralty were interested in small South Atlantic islands of no strategic significance, so Bruce arranged (with the acquiescence of the British Authorities) for Argentina to take over the stations. Three Argentine scientists worked on the South Orkney base under the supervision of Robert Mossman (from Fort William). This was a decision that was to have long-term geopolitical consequences unforeseeable in 1904. One of the Argentine scientists acted as postmaster, a position that is reco0gnised internationally as a tool of effective administration. The claim of effective administration continues today.
Sadly the Ben Nevis station closed in 1919 due to lack of funds, but the men working there were to have a long lasting influence
‘RIGHT’ WHALES
21 NovBritain is no longer a whaling nation but whaling made a significant contribution to its economy over many centuries. In the late nineteenth century the favoured whale, the most commercial ‘right’ whale, had been culled to near extinction in the North Atlantic and whaling expeditions from Dundee went south in search of these whales; they were fortunately unsuccessful and the industry declined. Hunters called the whales they were searching for ‘right’ whales because the whales swam slowly (and so were easy to catch) and floated when killed because of their large amount of blubber (which was rendered to tons of oil). Additionally their heads, one third of the whales’ length, contained long cartilaginous combs, Baleen plates, which filtered their food. These combs were much in demand commercially for use; corsets and umbrella spokes. The absence of Baleen plates may have influenced the fashion industry in the decline of the popularity of corsets!! Electricity made whale oil redundant for lighting.
The International Whaling Commission of 1946 was a global body designed to conserve and manage whaling. There were 88 member governments who were all signatories to the
Convention, which aimed to regulate whaling internationally. A moratorium on whale hunting of 1949 gave complete protection to the ‘right’ whale and the South African population of these whales is believed to have grown from 100 to 1,000 animals. However the northern ‘right’ whales remain at risk with only several hundred animals counted. This number does not appear to have increased in the decades since the moratorium. Is this because the females do not become sexually mature until the age of ten and give birth to a single calf after a years gestation? Additionally whilst they are not hunted by man, they remain at risk from Orcas whales that hunt in packs.
Loopholes in the convention mean that Japan, Norway and Iceland continue to hunt whales under the provision of ‘scientific’ reasons. Japan, which resists the Convention strongly, along with Norway and Iceland, have politically influential whaling industries and kill about 2,000 whales per year
Whales remain vulnerable and this will continue until all loopholes are closed. This can only happen by agreement with the dissenting nations when the industries are compensated. The commercial value of whale watching could be further developed.
SCOTT’S ‘SUICIDE’
12 NovThe correspondence about Scott and Bowers altering temperature data on their return from the Pole, has now resulted in over 20 statements on this blog. These include repeated requests for further background scientific information.
Sadly we have got nowhere and I think these conversations should now stop.
I look forward to seeing the book.
Isobel Williams – Author, Cruise Speaker and Lecturer 