xii PREFACE 



records of marine casualties emphasize the need for such work and the 

 regions at present under survey are those which are of particular importance 

 for the navigation of whaling vessels. 



In regard to sealing, work is being done upon the fur-seal rookeries of the 

 Falkland Islands, and the stocks of elephant-seals in South Georgia. The 

 former now promise well for the future, and the latter are under conservative 

 management and have been the subject of a profitable industry for a number 

 of years. 



Some preliminary work has been done on fisheries, but no ground of 

 special promise has yet been discovered. 



The main objects of the investigation are economic and it is to the econo- 

 mic aspect of the work that the energies of the scientific staff are primarily 

 directed. But the wide scope of the enquiry affords opportunity for many 

 observations whose value, in the present state of our knowledge, would seem 

 to be purely scientific. Such work, undertaken without ulterior motive, has 

 in the past often yielded results of the highest economic importance, and has 

 therefore been given a place in the general plan of operations ; it is undertaken, 

 however, only when it involves no interference with the economic programme. 

 The Committee is indebted to a number of specialists in different branches 

 of marine science for assistance in the preparation of results, and their papers, 

 some of which will be of purely scientific interest, will be published with the 

 others. 



It may be added that many of the reports which follow are records of work 

 still in progress, and that in some cases they may need modification in the 

 light of further experience. 



ROWLAND DARNLEY 



January 1930 



