On 21 July 1904, just over 80 years ago, the barque-rigged, Norwegian-built auxiliary steamship Scotia sailed home up the Clyde with members of the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition (SNAE), concluding one of the most successful expeditions of the heroic period of Antarctic exploration. Contemporaneous with the more spectacular British Antarctic Expedition (1901–03) commanded by Robert Falcon Scott, the Scotia party under William Spiers Bruce had overwintered on Laurie Island (60° 44ʹ S, 44° 50ʹ W) in the South Orkney Islands, explored for the first time the oceanography of the Weddell Sea, assembled an important collection of scientific material, and discovered Coats Land, an icebound stretch of the East Antarctica coast.

While Scott's Discovery expedition had emphasized geographical exploration inland from the Ross Sea sector of Antarctica, Bruce in the Scotia had concentrated more on scientific discovery in the Weddell Sea sector. On 12 November 1904 in Edinburgh, members of the Scotia and Discovery expeditions were guests at the 20th anniversary dinner of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, Bruce and Scott together responding to a presidential toast that honoured the success of both.

During spring 1983 a joint British-Norwegian expedition from the Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI) and the Norsk Polarinstitutt (NP) undertook a programme of glaciological research in the Svalbard archipelago. Work focussed on obtaining airborne radio echo sounding measurements using a newly-constructed digital system and some reconnaissance observations (temperatures, net mass budgets and ice velocities) on the ice caps of Nordaustlandet for the investigation of their surging behaviour. Valley glaciers in Spitsbergen and the ice cap on Kvitøya were also sounded from the air.

Much ink has been spilled over the future prospects of a Northern native economy based on a mix of hunting, trapping and wage work. Information on the mixed economy appeared during debates over Northern pipeline development which raged during the 1970s; though the native lifestyle came under close scrutiny during that period, sceptics remain unconvinced of the very existence, let alone the viability, of a native mixed economy. In their view a way of life based on harvesting ‘country foods’ is moribund and should give place as soon as possible to a full-fledged wage economy; those who think otherwise, including the authors of pipeline inquiries, are misguided romantics. This paper re-examines the debates over the prospects for a native hunting economy, and comes down on the side of its proponents. The author concludes that, given proper institutional support, a mixed economy should persist into the next century, and shows that the critics of the bush economy have underestimated its contribution to the welfare of Northern natives.

Aleksandr Stepanovich Kuchin (1888–1912) was already an experienced mariner and oceanographer when Amundsen invited him to join the Fram expedition of 1910–12. Expecting a voyage through the Barents Sea, Kuchin found himself on an expedition to the Antarctic. While Amundsen's sledging parties sought the South Pole, Kuchin remained with the ship, completing an excellent oceanographic survey of the southern Atlantic Ocean. Returning to Russia in 1912 he was recruited, by the geologist and explorer V. A. Rusinov to join a scientific expedition to Svalbard. As deputy leader of the party and captain of Gerkules, the expedition ship, Kuchin played an important role in the Svalbard survey. Then once again found himself heading in an unexpected direction: on completing the Svalbard work, Rusanov decided to attempt the Northern Sea Route to the Bering Strait. Gerkules disappeared and was never seen again; her loss, presumably in the Kara Sea, brought to an untimely end the career of a promising young polar explorer.

Charles Darwin's notes, diary entries and letters covering visits to southern South America and the Falkland Islands in 1833 and 1834 throw light on the revolutionary events of the time. His notes also contain the first indication of an evolutionary concept, suggested by the endemic flora and fauna of the Falklands, which guided his later observations on the Galapagos Islands and lead ultimately to his theory of evolution by natural selection.

The thirty-sixth annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) was held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, 18–22 June 1984, at the invitation of the Government of Argentina, under the chairmanship of E.H. Iglesias (Argentina). This was the first time since 1977 that the meeting had been held outside the United Kingdom, where the Secretariat has its headquarters. Thirty-seven of the Commission's 40 member nations attended. Observers were present from two non-member governments, five intergovernmental organisations (including the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation and the United Nations Environmental Programme) and 37 non-governmental conservation, animal welfare and trade organisations.

Smith (1982) reported the discovery in 1981 of Antarctic hair grass Deschampsia antarctica Desv. on the largest of the Refuge Islands (68° 21' S) in Marguerite Bay, off the south-west coast of Antarctic Peninsula (Figure 1). This, was at the time the southernmost record of one of Antarctica's two native flowering plants. The only ecologically suitable area for vascular plants south of these islands appeared to be the Terra Firma Islands, 40 km along the coast, which Smith had been unable to reach due to dense pack ice. Earlier reports of grass and grass-like plants on the Terra Firma Islands could not be accepted as reliable in the absence of accurate descriptions, specimens or photographs, for elsewhere the bushy grey-green or yellow lichens Usnea antarctica and U. fasciata have been mistaken for grass when viewed from a distance. However, both Deschampsia antarctica and also Antarctic pearlwort Colobanthus quitensis (Kunth) Bartl., Antarctica's other flowering plant, have now been positively identified at a site on Barn Rock (68° 42' S, 67° 32' W) in the Terra Firma group.