DISCOVERY II

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 1, 1 July 1939, Page 29

DISCOVERY II

BACK AT LONDON

The research ship Discovery II arrived back at London recently * after nearly two years in the Antarctic. The. main purpose of her work on this— her fifth—commission has been to study the natural history of the whale of the. Southern Ocean and to examine the factors in their environment which control their distribution and migration, says an exchange.

She left London for the Antarctic in October, 1937. Starting from Cape Town in the following, month, she began a cruise in polar waters, which included calls at Fremantle, Dunedin, the Falkland Islands, and South Georgia, and ended at Cape Town in May, 1938.

After refitting in South Africa the Discovery II commenced the second part of her programme in July, 1938, when a series of cruises took place in regions lying to the south-east and south of South Afrita.

When Discdvery II reached Cape Town in March it was learned that she had located unmapped land in the Antarctic, consisting of a! barrier 100 miles long, between the Greenwich meridian and four degrees east. The land was from 70ft to 150 ft above sea level, and a depth of 60 fathoms was recorded near it. Efforts to land were defeated by the intensity of the ice pack. Later the Norwegian Foreign Secretary stated that the land had already been discovered by Norwegians, but maps showing it had not yet been published.