686 REPORT — 1902. 



The desire to give security to sailing-ships running a great- circle course to 

 Australia, India, and China by improving knowledge of magnetic variation 

 helped to produce the great expedition of Sir James Clark Ross in 1839-43 and 

 stimulated those of Wilkes and Dumont D'Urville about the same time. 



Subsequent attempts at commercial exploration have failed, and the only 

 motive now acting is the pursuit of pure science for its own sake ; and this has 

 sent out the ' Belgica ' expedition, the British, German, and Swedish expeditions 

 now in the field, and will send out Mr. Brace's expedition from Scotland. 



2. The Scottish National Antarctic Expedition. By W. S. Bbucr. 



The object of the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition is to specialise in 

 oceanography and meteorology; but biology, geology, and magnetism will also be 

 actively pursued. Its sphere of operations wJll be the south of the South Atlantic 

 Ocean, between the tracks of the Swedish and German expeditions. The base of 

 the expedition will be the Falkland Islands, and from there a course will be 

 steered south-east to the Sandwich group, and thence south into the Weddell 

 Sea. During the summer an attempt will be made to reach as far south as pos- 

 sible without incurring the risk of the ship becoming frozen into the ice in the 

 winter, for it is intended, by keeping the ship free during that season, to continue 

 the scientific work up to and outside of the limit of the polar ice. A wintering 

 party, composed of several of the scientific staff, will also be left in the south if 

 funds permit. The expedition will be absent for a period of two years. 



The ship is a rebuilt Norwegian whaler, and has been named the ' Scotia.' She 

 Is a barque-rigged auxiliary screw steamer of about 400 tons. She carries a crew 

 of twenty-five and a scientific stafif of eiglit. Mr. W. S. Bruce, the leader, has 

 appointed Captain Thomas Robertson, of Peterhead, to command the ship. 



3. The Islet of Rockall. % Rev. W. Spotswood Green, i^l^.^'.^. 



In June 1896 the author had the rare opportunity of conducting a scientific 

 expedition in the ss. * Granuaile,' placed by the Congested Districts Board of 

 Ireland at the disposal of the Royal Irish Academy for the purpose, to Rockall, 

 the most outlying speck of the British Islands. It stands on a bank to the N. W. of 

 Ireland, cut off from the British plateau by a great abyss of 1,600 fathoms, covered 

 with the globigerina ooze of the ocean depths, into which that plateau suddenly 

 descends, from a depth of 300 fathoms, the edge of the plateau being found to be 

 composed, wherever the author has trawled, chiefly of erratic subangular blocks 

 or boulders. 



The rock consists of a single tooth of granitoid rock, of such special character 

 that it bears the name of ' rockalite.' Close by the main rock, which is only 

 70 feet high and about 75 yards in circumference, the Haslewood Rock appears 

 above water at half tide, while two miles to the N.E. a rocky ridge known as 

 Hellen's Reef comes within 6 feet of the surface, and constitutes the greatest danger 

 of the locality. Within 20 yards of Rockall we got 30 fathoms of water, and 

 the soundings at a short distance from any of the rocks is 70 fathoms. The 

 100-fathom line follows the general outline of the whole bank. So far as 

 soundings go Rockall is more connected with the Arctic area than with the 

 British Islands. 



From its situation the fauna of the islet and bank might be expected to differ 

 from that of the British seas, and some interesting specimens of animal life not 

 belonging to the British fauna were, in fact, discovered in trawling on the bank. 

 The Great Shearwater was seen on the islet, but the nesting-place of this bird was 

 sought in vain 



In the sixteenth century, one of Martin Frobisher's ships, a 'Busse,' when 

 returning from the Arctic discovered an island of several miles in extent about the 

 position of Rockall. Rockall and its reefs are not referred to in charts or writings 



