io2 NATURAL SCIENCE. Feb, 



Museum from the expedition were the gift of the commander of the 

 " Balaena." 



At last, on the 18th of February, 1893, the vessel bore up for 

 home, and reached Dundee on the 30th of May, having a cargo of 5,226 

 seals. The rest of the fleet also arrived safely, the " Active" with 

 some 4,000 skins, the "Diana" with 3,572, and the " Polar Star " 

 with 1,908, a total of 14,706. The commercial result of the voyage 

 was not such as to encourage a repetition, and the Scotch vessels did 

 not return to the Antarctic, leaving the field entirely to the 

 Norwegian ships. 



Appended to Mr. Murdoch's book is a chapter by Mr. W. S. 

 Bruce, who accompanied the "Balaena" as Naturalist, which 

 contains some remarks on the results of the voyage ; but it is to be 

 hoped that a fuller account will eventually be forthcoming. Mr. 

 Bruce and Mr. Donald have also contributed papers to the Royal 

 Physical Society of Edinburgh (4 and 6), which are both interesting, 

 as well as preliminary reports in the Geographical Journal, vol ii., 

 pp. 430 and 433. 



Although the Scotch owners abandoned the Antarctic sealing, the 

 Norwegian vessels, which are worked on a more economical principle, 

 have by no means done so. In the middle of September, 1893, 

 ■Commander Svend Foyne of Tonsberg, the proprietor of the noted 

 Finwhale Fishery in Finmarken, despatched one of his sleuth-hounds, 

 the " Cap Nor," re-christened for the occasion the " Antarctic," a 

 barque-rigged vessel of 226 tons register, commanded by Capt. 

 Leonard Christensen, with a crew of 26 all told. She carries no 

 scientific staff, but a Mr. Bull, her manager, has received instruction 

 from the Norwegian Meteorological Institute and the Christiania 

 University, and will make meteorological and other observations, and 

 there is no doubt Professor Collett will give a good account of the 

 results so obtained. This vessel is to make a more extended cruise 

 than the others, and to visit some of the former haunts of the Fur 

 Seals on her way out. She arrived at Melbourne on the 27th of 

 February, 1894, having touched at Les Palmas, Tristan da Cunha, 

 and Kerguelen ; at the latter place she is reported to have run into 

 Greenland Harbour and visited Royal Sound, where a colony of 59 

 persons was found, consisting of Europeans, Chinese, and Indians, 

 but there were no Fur Seals. She was to sail for the south in 

 November and to search for open water between 75 S. and 78 S., in 

 hopes of finding whaling grounds. 



The " Jason " returned to the Antarctic Seas last season accom- 

 panied by two other Norwegian vessels, the " Castor " and the 

 " Hertha," with the " Orion," which remained at Port Stanley as a 

 store ship. They returned to the Falkland Islands from the south on 

 the 12th of January, 1894, having seen an enormous number of seals, 

 which, owing to the broken condition of the ice, it was impossible to 

 approach. They there discharged their small cargoes into the 



